


A Million Voices

by Ahab2631



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: #Ad Infinitum, #Feynites, #Fizzgig, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Armchair Philosphy, Aspergers, BEING RE-WRITTEN, Banter, Basically six million dollar man but with magic, Brainwashing, But I do misuse the word "irony", But from the perspective of someone who learned to hide it when they were a kid sooooo, Do not DO NOT ignore the archive warnings, Drugged Sex, END SPOILER TAGS, Elves make a mass exodus, Elvhen mating rituals, Elvhenan, Elvhenan Culture and Customs, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Except I ignore the fact that everyone's teeth are probably gross, Exploring what elvhen culture might have been like, F/M, Foreknowledge, Geas, Going for 100 percent in character for everyone, High bar what's a high bar?, I do not misuse the word "literally", I don't know what's happening, I honestly can't tell if she's a marysue and its killing me, I literally could not if I tried, I mean, I'm so unsure of this entire story and a year in I still can't figure out whyyyyy, I've mostly given up having aneurysms over the word count, JUST, Kidnapping, Lore Spelunking, Mind Control, Modern Girl in Thedas, Multi, No they're not just magic humans with pointy ears who lived like we do but forever, None of that "this must be a dream or hallucination" crap, Not a self insert, Pair Bonding, Probably not for the last time, Rape, Realistic Demons, Realistic Thedas, SPOILER TAGS TO FOLLOW, Sadly we still start at the boring beginning, Sass, Seriously OP main character, Softening Leliana, Solas develops a Clark Kent complex over Fen'harel, Taking liberties with the elvhen race, That should be obvious, The Fade, There was too much to front load to do it any other way, There will be a decided lack of kid gloves, There's nothing to be done for it, They go into heat, This will not be a pain-free ride, Time Travel, We may try to reason with Captain Beetlebrows (Roderick), Where the hell was I, and then gets much worse, animal sidekicks, everything goes to hell, free use of profanity, non-con elements, omg, sass upon sass upon banter upon sass, sort of, that keeps happening for a while, the slowest of burns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2018-10-19 10:59:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 30
Words: 218,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10638471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ahab2631/pseuds/Ahab2631
Summary: The Premise:You know the story. There's a woman.  She gets a green mark in her hand, boys like her, everyone wants to kill her, shit gets dicey.The Twist:She doesn't speak Common, knows everything that's going to happen but not who she is, uses magic that shouldn't be possible, and moves like she was made for battle. She doesn't trust or like Solas, and she has no intention of allowing things to happen the way they're "supposed" to.Throw in some time travel, plots that stretch back thousands of years, ample sass, an ancient Elvhen mating ritual or two, and what we have is (hopefully) a damn good ride.





	1. --PART I--

**Author's Note:**

> **New:**  
>  Turns out you get better at writing over time? So I'm overhauling this ("leveling up")  
> \- Late 2018
> 
> \- - -
> 
> Going for 100% in-character for everyone. It's an evolving process.
> 
>  ~~BAMF for a main character, not to be confused with a Mary Sue. It's a fine line. I'm having a go at walking it. Pray for me.~~ I tried. I really did/am. But I think we have to be honest with ourselves and admit this is probably kind of a MarySue situation. I don't know. *beleaguered sigh*
> 
> For those who love DA:I fics but are tired of the obligatory "wake up, Cassandra yells, the sky is all green" chapters, I've made it easy to skip those. Enjoy.
> 
> Standard disclaimer: I don't abandon fics. Ever. *dramaticface* But I do have a brain thing that sometimes makes writing impossible. Don't let long waits between chapters scare you. We (the story and I) ain't goin' nowhere.
> 
> I back-edit like crazy, and there are likely to be plot changes in the story as I go. I'm still figuring things out. I'll add a note if I make more than cosmetic edits.
> 
> I have no Beta. My typos and I apologize in advance, as do the especially weak bits of prose. If you're the type who likes to point stuff out, please do. I love this, but I'm not attached to it - I just want it to be the best it can.
> 
> Have all the fun!

**-  -  -  -  -**

**A Face In The Sand**

**-  -  -  -  -**

 

 

Sharp bits of rock crunch under my hands as I try to push myself up. A thick layer of silt-fine dirt smooths their path, but the motion is still scarcely more than a twitch.

It is too quiet, like something has just happened, or is about to. The noise of my own body on what feels like the floor of a derelict, long-abandoned warehouse is all I hear at first, followed by a wind that seems heavy and thick with presage.

The smell hits me: charred flesh. Burned hair. I know these smells, nauseating and sickly sweet, but _how_ I know them doesn't follow as it should. It is information without context. I notice residual heat in the ground, as if a fire has just been there all around me, and suddenly realize - or is it remember? - that most of what I am breathing in likely isn't dust. It is ash. Remains.

I cough reflexively, shallow and short, but it sends more spraying up into my face and lungs. I manage to get enough leverage to lift my shoulders and belly off the ground, and balance on palms and hip and thigh as I slowly crack my eyes open. There is too much light; my eyes are aching.

Corpses are everywhere, some piled on top of one another. Maybe thirty feet away is a long line of them, tipped like a column of dominoes. There must have been an aisle of some sort that they had been crowded into. My stomach turns and I have to clench down on its sudden desire to empty itself.

The bodies are charred, so charred that there are no clothes, no faces, no features. Only their sizes give clues to what gender they might have been. There appears to be two children, though they are unusually broad. I try to tell myself that it is better this way, better not to be able to make out too much. No staring eyes, no frozen pain or fear or shock. But that is worse somehow, as if they are denied the respect of even having really existed, as if everything they had ever been is wiped from the earth along with their lives.

I take in the scale of what looks to have been a truly massive explosion and wonder if they’d even had time to be afraid. Something in me shudders, and I truly hope they didn't. But the forms tell a different story. Some are on their stomachs and clearly trying to escape what was the source of the... blast? But no. No, it hadn't been a bomb, it couldn't have been. There is enough destruction for one, but it is all wrong. Pieces of building and earth are fused together and pushing up at an angle from the epicenter in spikes. It is like this place is a pool of water and something has dropped into it, leaving straight, rigid shards of water frozen in time. Everything is charred, blackened like wood too long in a fire. The smallest of the protrusions ire as big around as my waist, the largest easily fifty times that size, and most are studded with bits of glowing red that are nothing like coals holding onto old heat. It is more like someone has stuck shards of angry light inside of them, and I wonder if they are why something in the air feels so very wrong.

I look down at myself. I am the cleanest, most in tact thing I can see, dirty from the ground and the air, but otherwise I look like I have somehow been transplanted here. If not for the fact that I feel like I am one solid bone-deep bruise, I might think my presence at all is the impossibility, rather than the fact that a massive, horrifying blast has somehow skipped right over me.

I notice all of this in the same instant it takes me to realize that I am completely naked. Lacerations cover my flesh from limbs to breasts to stomach, and ugly patches of blood under my skin, some bigger than my head, are blooming. Something about me looks... off, but I can't quite tell why. Most concerning by far is the pink, red, purple, and black radiating from my abdomen in a spot so large that the area is almost entirely covered.

I am bleeding internally, so badly that I might be lucky to have woken up at all.

I quickly scan over the rest of myself. My head feels cloudy, but lucid enough. If I have a concussion, it is probably minor. I don't feel any bone injuries, at least. But that doesn't mean I don't have any. I can feel my wounds but I am not overwhelmed by them, so either I am impossibly lucky and a massive amount of adrenaline is numbing the pain, or shock hasn't truly started to set in yet. Given that my extremities are starting to feel cold, I doubt that luck will hold long.

The damage to the world around me extends as far as I can see, but my view is limited to the huge sunken room I seem to be in - all around are the blackened and broken remains of a heavy stone wall, and I can just make out the flat surface of ground at its top. I must be in a basement or sunken room, the rest of the building now peeled back to give an unhindered view of the sky.

I hope to god I can move well enough to get up stairs or, if they aren't still in tact, find a gentle slope of rubble to scale. If I can manage to get to my feet and move well at all, I doubt I'll be able to keep it up for long.

All I want to do is lay back down, but I can't wait here for help. I have no idea where “here” is, and can't see outside of the space I am in well enough to try and get a feel for what might be around me. I also don't hear any shouting. No cries for help, no voices raised in alarm. I might be in the middle of nowhere, or it could be that the explosion has carried much, much farther than I can guess. I am so near the epicenter as to practically be on top of it; this will be the last place anyone will check for survivors.

If I don't get myself out of there, I might not live through the rest of the daylight hours, which look to be few - the shadows and the way the light looks gold tell me it is evening. But not quite gold. There is a green cast, a color that pricks and tugs at something in my mind--

A memory floods me:

 

_The world is hazy and shifting and green as jade, but there is sharp black earth under me._

_Someone takes my hand and a voice speaks, rough and smooth and tired and strong and echoing in my mind like a memory. It is hollow and whole; there is no timbre, no octave, nothing that makes a voice a voice. It grates on my brain, like bugs crawling over skin, but it is as if I did not exist until I heard it._

_“Little One,” it greets me, its not-voice warm and fond. No, excited. Perhaps both._

_I look up to the person helping me to my feet among dirt and rock that appears as if it is trying to decide if it wants to be dirt and rock or change to something else. Whoever it is, their form is so blurred that I can’t make out more than a vague sense of its shape._ _I squint at it, then look around me, assuming there is something wrong with my eyes, but everything is as clear and sharp as it was a moment ago - unusually sharp, in fact. And I can see too far into the distance, to rock and land and trees all floating gently in the air and whole patches of empty nothing beyond. I feel nauseated from it. A sudden wind blows my hair into my face._

_All I can tell about the figure is that it is tall and human and has long, straight, radiant golden hair. it is as if a thick film hangs in the air between us. Even its touch is unsteady, there and not there. Still, it sets off the strangest clawing ache squeezing at my chest._

_It is then that I notice the person is holding something in its other hand: the wrist of a woman. She is as clear as everything but the blonde person, lying on the ground behind it. I can make out only pale skin and dark hair. Her face is hidden, apparently immune to the wind. She seems to be unconscious - but not dead, I do not know how I can tell - and badly scratched and bruised. The person before me does not seem to care. A glow comes from the woman's hand that matches the strange tint to the world around us._

_“Everything has changed,” the blurred person says. There is a strange lilt to the way it speaks. “I shan’t ruin the plot for you, so I’ll keep the instructions simple.” It is cool, but I can feel an almost manic excitement coming from it._

_Its “voice” sets fear moving in an old, well-worn groove at the heart of me. I was not aware of it a moment before.  
_

_I am not certain if I was aware of anything a moment before._

_“Who a-” I begin, and my voice warbles as if I am trying to speak through honey. The person cuts me off._

_“Hush.” It is not friendly. It is not a request. “You'll find I've taken a good deal from you. You'll think so, at least." It sounds... condescending? "But it's in your best interest and,” here I hear a smile in its voice, “I have given much more than I've taken.” It turns businesslike, and here clearly begins the instruction. “At your feet are about to be laid opportunities and resources. Use them. Study, grow and, most importantly, **find who you are.** Not the details, those don’t matter." It waves a hand. "But the heart, **that** you must cultivate.”_

_It pauses, and I can feel it studying me. “I'd like to say more, but I can't. Not yet._

_“Keep your eyes open, and that heart," it points to my chest and dips its chin toward it, "true. You'll need both, and all the strength you possess. Keep to those, and you'll do everything you-- everything we--”_

_It growls in open frustration._

_“I will come for you soon. Until then... keep yourself safe.” I do not know how, but I can feel it holding something back, something else it wants to say._

_It releases its hold on the wrist of the woman and reaches out to me. Familiar as if it has done it a thousand times, it strokes my cheek. It is the warm gesture of a fond mother. “Our long road will be over soon.”_

_It removes its hand, fingertips silking over my chin. "And your way back is nearly here."_

_As it leans down to retrieve the woman’s wrist and twines its fingers with mine, it speaks again, its not-voice wry. "One last piece of advice, hmm? Don’t waste your time looking for me. You have many more important things to do, and I will be as dust on the wind to you and your little toys. I'll be lost until..." It sighs. "Until it is time."_

_Before I can manage more than a confused parting of lips, its grip turns to iron and its fingers dig into my flesh viciously. It leans in to whisper in my ear. “The pain cannot be avoided.”_

_Agony shoots from my hand up into my chest, down my legs, to my brain and my bones and to the very core of me and I **scream,** throat shredding around the cry._

_The world condenses to sharp whiteness. Time, body and mind, and the world around me all cease to exist._

_What can’t be an instant later it all comes rushing back like the crush of an ocean wave. It feels as if my right hand and forearm have been thrust into the heart of a star._

_The screaming has gotten worse, louder and louder, impossibly loud until I think my ear drums will rupture. It is a noise beyond sound, like cutting shards of glass and I would do anything to make it stop._

_I realize it isn't me screaming - it is the woman on the ground. She is writhing and thrashing and clawing and the sounds that tear from her are no longer human, no longer possible, and I swear they make the very air shake, but the blurred person clutches her just as unerringly as it still holds onto me. Its face is turned to the woman on the ground, and though I can't see its features, I feel its utter disdain, as if watching her agony carries no more impact than watching a single leaf fall to the ground in an Autumn wind as it walks by._

_My stomach heaves. I realize I am sobbing uncontrollably, begging perhaps - are there words coming from my chest? - crying out for the sound to stop, for the pain to stop, clawing at the person’s hand in mine until it grows slick with blood, but if it feels any pain, it does not care._

_Echoes of the sharp agony are flitting through me like bundles of white-hot razor blades and I feel my muscles twitch and spasm and contract around themandgodbutIwould **do anythingtoshutoutthescreams.** They are shredding through me so mercilessly that I don’t even have room inside to realize that they mean someone is in enough pain to be making them. Someone is dying, worse than dying, and I either don’t know or can’t care. _

_Pins and needles begin to prick at my face and my chest and my limbs, and like clouds moving over the sun, everything sinks to black nothingness._

 

I suck in more remains as I come back to the world with a start, a strange buzzing in my head, and suddenly my injuries are more sharp, the ground is more hard, the light is painful to my eyes, the smell of ash and death are more overpowering, as if reality has doubled over on itself and increased in size. It hurts, it all hurts.

I hear voices nearby, and wonder if I disappeared for a time while the memory took me. I hear footsteps. They sound for what seems like forever - are they walking in circles on the other side of the ridge? Stepping a centimeter at a time? - before heads finally begin to appear on the small horizon, cautious but numerous. They are clad in silver and crimson and they look... sickly. Tired and marked and sun-worn, aged before their time. I can hear them talking to one another, but can’t make out what they are saying.

I open my mouth and suck in a breath to call to them, but the moment my stomach muscles clench, my insides scream and I start to cough. Globlets of red spatter into the ash in front of me and black crowds around my vision, covering a pain so intense I don’t have words for it.

I look back up and see a woman looking from above my head to right at me, eyes wide, loose strands of dull brown hair waving over her face, mouth opening to shout. I can see a fleck of blue in her left eye. I can see the cracks in the fibers of her hair as they're blown about.

I hear the yell just before I go down, too dizzy and light to hold myself up any longer. My vision blacks out and I feel my head hit the ground and bounce heavily before coming to rest, but there is no pain. There is no pain anywhere. I am so tired....

Heavy footfalls echo in my head like heat and fluttering heartbeats--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The totally BA concept of waking up to corpses as a quick-start taken from this A++ fic right [here.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2845277/chapters/6381311) You'll find another small idea or two ("hundred," she adds months later) from that story peppered in here as we go, too. She really improves as a writer as the story goes on, so if you're tempted to stop reading before the 9th chapter or so... don't. Just don't. See all the comments and stuff? They're there for a reason, and the reason is that holy shit. Oh and ignore her warning, there is 0% Mary Sue action up in there.
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> 5/4/17: last half of the chapter entirely retooled and redone to cover a plot point I've been wrestling with for some time.  
> 1/11/18: Level up!: Fade flashback and a couple things after only. Mostly for better character understanding and more information about the long-game plot. Changes are unedited, so will be messy until I get around to fixing them.


	2. While She Sleeps

“She’s just here, Ser.”

“Maker,” Cullen breaths when the unconscious woman comes into view, every bit as bereft of clothing as reported. "Could you not have covered her?" He can see the muted, sickly green light coming from her right hand. It is the same color, jade and unnaturally bright, as the hole in the sky and the solid, unwavering column of light that connects it to what he can only describe as a rip in the air not fifteen feet off the ground. That tear is wider than he is tall, and several times that height. It jars against him like rock scraping bone.

"I... we wanted to, Commander. But given...." The man clears his throat. "We thought it best not to disturb anything until you could... ehm, examine the situation."

"Right," Cullen says, neither rebuke nor approval in his dry tone. "I don't like the look of that... whatever it is." He gestures to the Tear. "Until we know more, I want as many soldiers as we can spare keeping an eye on it at all times. I'll deal with the woman. We'll move her the moment the healers clear it, then all of you comb this area. Don't overlook so much as a pebble."  
  
"Understood, Ser," the soldier says, clasping a hand to his breast as the Commander walks away. He steps over rubble and down what remains of a broad, twisting set of stone stairs to the destruction below. Only the mangled base of on of the temple's massive central column remains, jutting into the air like a snapped bone. 

The woman is on the ground on the near side of the column, opposite the Tear. She's large for an elf, likely taller than any man of her kind and without the slight, waifish build typical among elven women. She is alarmingly battered, but underneath appears fit, well-fed, uncommonly well-proportioned and, most surprisingly, in better health even than any noble Cullen has ever seen. Golden hair spills around her, clearly shining and smooth under the filth and blood. She must have been kept healthy and free of disease since childhood. Her facial structure in particular is unlike that of any other elf he has ever seen - less angular and drawn, more human, even elegant. A prized servant, perhaps, though he thinks darkly on what would encourage any patron to so dote on a beautiful subservient girl for most, if not all of her life.

As he draws closer, he gets another surprise: she cannot be more than sixteen. His examination of her has been clinical, but her features and figure do not hint at even the slightest possibility of immaturity - until her face comes into clear view, and her youth becomes unmistakable.

Two healers work on her. One stabilizes the worst of her injuries, while the other is getting potion after potion down her throat to try and keep her alive. She needs to be removed from the area as soon as possible.

And there is no one else left alive for them to work on.

The Healer seeing to the woman's - young woman's - injuries moves down her body to examine her thighs, so Cullen tugs his armor covering from the tops of his trousers and slips out of it. He lays the soft fabric over her upper body and hips, the thick fur at its top draped across slender shoulders - slender for some human women, but again quite broad for an elf.

There is a noise, and Cullen jerks upright, his sword out of its scabbard so fast it can scarcely be seen - creaking groans he is all too familiar with sound from the other side of the central column - the side with the Tear that so grates at him. He orders the healers to flee and calls for his men. Immediately he hears the clatter of dozens of boots headed down the stairs and in his direction, weapons drawing. A demon is bad enough, but he will not risk being undercautious; he knows too well what strange magic can do.

A form, slightly larger than that of a man, sickly gray and decrepit, walks around the pillar on emaciated, quavering legs. Sharp nails, ripped and jagged at the ends of overlong fingers are tapping a rhythm against the stone as it moves, its eyes already locked on its prey - at the moment, the bleeding woman on the ground. It is hunched over on itself as if weak, and is half rotted. One hand clutches its stomach. It looks so frail that it could be knocked over in a strong breeze.

It is a Hunger demon, a large one. Not summoned, not bound, not an abomination. A pure demon, walking free in Thedas.  
  
His eyes narrow and he barks a warning to his soldiers: It has the strength and speed of fifteen men, and underestimating it will end them.

He steps to the side, putting himself squarely between the demon and the young woman. Its eyes, little more than unnaturally hollow black pits with pinpricks of light in their depths, slide up to him. The glow flares to life and the demon coils to charge, but before it can close the distance, Rigby, he thinks, a seasoned man, charges in with a shout and engages it.

At least a dozen others are on his heels, more behind them, and he must leave them to it. Duty is duty, and his priority is and must be getting the young woman to safety. There are too many questions only she may be able to answer.

A second hunger demon chuffs a dry, hoarse call as it comes from the far side of the column and leaps high into the air to get behind Rigby. Cullen nearly hesitates - nearly. More soldiers join the battle, two of them former Templars, and their presence is what makes him feel he can leave. Templars know demons.  
  
The Tear in the sky swells and flares. The mark on the young woman’s hand seems to echo it, and discomfort feathers over her otherwise peaceful expression.

At the precise moment two more demons appear - Grief and Rage, as unbound and purely-formed as the others - she groans in obvious pain, and this time Cullen sees exactly where they are coming from: the Tear. He curses, sheaths is sword and in one smooth motion, gathers her into his arms. He shouts for his men to hold ground as he turns and runs, trying to keep the worst of the jouncing from the girl. Even after the work the healers have done, she is in terrible shape. Some of the lacerations on her will never fully heal, and he has seen men die from less bleeding than she has under the skin of her belly.

She mutters something unintelligible, and Cullen looks down in surprise as he continues to hurry - up stairs, around a corner, down a hall, more stairs, out into the open again. Her eyes are still closed, brows pinched together, but they flicker for a moment, as if she's dreaming, and what he sees nearly makes his blood cold. The whites are deep black that fades into large, vivid irises devoid of pupils. Their color shifts, like liquid paint spilled into pools of mud left after the rain. They shift around one another as if they can't decide what to be and are fighting over the question.  
  
She moans something more, half pleading, half demanding, her breath pluming in the air, and Cullen realizes it isn’t unintelligible at all - it's a foreign tongue, unlike any he has ever heard. He feels her muscles begin to bunch and twitch in the throes of whatever dream she is having, and tears begin to brake up some of the ash that covers her face. Her lips are cracked as if from heat and dehydration.

“You’re alright,” Cullen murmurs to her. He cannot begin to guess what she is, but she seems more a victim than a villain - these are wounds of torture, not injury - but he knows better than most how deceiving appearances can be. He only thanks the Maker he isn’t the one who has to sort this out.

He clenches his jaw and pushes on until he reaches the small forward camp that has been hastily set up just outside what was once the entrance to the most holy building in all of Thedas. He quickly sends more soldiers to the scar, and a runner to get reinforcements from Haven. At the direction of the healers who had been working on her, he moves to a small medical tent and carefully lays her on a bedroll on the ground.

As he exits the tent, he catches sight of Cassandra and Leliana coming over the rise at a jog.

“The reports were accurate,” he says wearily, preempting the questions. “But we have a bigger problem. Whatever is on her hand seems to be connected to some sort of scar in the air beneath whatever it is,” he nods up toward the massive swirling green _thing_ in the sky, “and it’s spitting out demons faster than my men can kill them. I’ve sent for reinforcements, but the thing is not small, and it seems to be growing.”

“And the Divine?” Cassandra asks. He hears the tight, controlled desperation in her voice. “Have she been found? Or any others?”

Cullen shakes his head kindly, feeling a stab of pity. “I’m sorry, but no. There is no sign. In all honesty....” he goes on, casting a look at the tent the girl is in. Through the opening, he can just make out the form of one of the healers bent over her and working with tight haste. “No one should have been able to survive whatever happened here. Everything is... melted. Burned, decimated. What wasn’t earth or stone was destroyed completely. There aren’t remains in there for a fraction of the people who were attending the Conclave. They were turned to ash, probably instantly.”

Cassandra’s face hardens and she looks to the medical tent. “What of this woman, then? She survived. Does she bear the mark that matches the sky? Did she do this?”

Cullen makes a thoughtful, if dubious noise. “It's _possible._  But the reports weren't all right - she does have a mark in her hand, and it does seem connected to whatever is going on, but not favorably. It pains her. And she isn't a woman or... honestly I don't even know. She was talking as I brought her up here. Muttering. Crying, actually. It sounded imploring, but I couldn’t make out a word of it. It’s like no language I’ve ever heard. I don’t know if it has anything to do with this - and I hesitate to guess that she does - given the shape she’s in.... If she _is_ behind it, then something went horribly wrong with her plan. And..." he hesitates, a hand going to the back of his neck to massage the muscle there. "The report was wrong about something else. I didn't know until I got a good look at her, but she isn't a woman, she can't be. She's practically a child. And her eyes, Maker.”

"What do you mean, 'a child?'" She asks, appalled.

"I mean she can't be older than seventeen. It... her figure--" he blushes, but goes on as if he's had no reaction, "--is mature, I can understand why the scouts misidentified her, but under the ash, when you get a look at her face--"

"It is possible for women to have childish features, Commander," Leliana says, somewhat more coolly than he thinks necessary. "Some are quite good at using it to their advantage, in fact."

He shakes his head. "You'll see what I mean when the healers are done with her."

"Is she elven as the report said? They can appear quite immature," Leliana suggests.

"Aren't you perhaps reaching?" he asks drily. "She was without a scrap of clothing and if it weren't for the ears, I would have assumed she was human. A  _fully-grown_ human."

"She is not a halfling?"

"Her ears were larger and more pointed than any I've ever seen. She's broad, and taller than you are."

"What of her eyes?"

"They're... changing." He describes what he saw on the run here. "They're the same, except the black parts have gone white, and the colors is different from what it was."

"Is she, what, possessed?"

"No. I made certain to check before I left her again."

"None of this means she is not behind what happened," Cassandra snaps impatiently.

"I know better than most how deceptive age and appearance can be when it comes to what a person with power is capable of, Cassandra, but she just...."

"She is pretty?" Leliana asked, wry amusement in her voice.

"I beg your pardon?" He asks, insulted.

"You would hardly be the first man to think a woman innocent and incapable of malice based on a pretty face."

"I would be the last man to think such a thing," he says, tone going hard. "If you don't trust me, then trust Cassandra. It is by her judgement that I'm here at all. Call it instinct, call it taking in the field, call it whatever you want. I am more than open to the possibility that she is behind all of this, no matter her age or appearance, but I do not believe she is," he says firmly. "I think that whatever has happened to her happened _to_ her, not because of her."

"I mean no offense, Commander," Leliana assures him. He believes her. "We must ensure no possibility is disregarded out of hand. You say she is injured. That and her apparent vulnerability could be part of a plan. We would be much more likely to suspect someone who came out of this unscathed, no?”

Cullen makes a doubtful noise in his throat. “I suppose so, but is it any less strange that she survived if she’s been beaten to within an inch of her life? And if she was smart enough to take such a step, she’d have to realize that the mark on her hand would be damning enough on its own.”

“You said she had no clothing. There was nothing around her at all?” Cassandra asks. “Something hidden or buried perhaps? Any clue as to who she might be?”

Cullen shakes his head. “She’d be a mystery on her own without any of it anyway, or the mark. She was filthy and covered in soot and blood and bruising, but it was still obvious that she has been better seen to than royalty, probably since infancy. When she spoke, I saw some of the whitest, straightest teeth I’ve ever seen. The best I could guess was that she was a servant or... perhaps indentured into work at a brothel. A very high-end brothel,” his voice makes his opinion of such establishments clear. “But those seem flimsy ideas at best. Her condition, her build... You should both get a look at her. The extent of her injuries is... difficult to put to words.

“My men left the central area where she was found largely untouched until I arrived, but demons began pouring out of some sort of Tear in the sky shortly after I did. Full-blooded demons as if straight from the Fade. I ordered a thorough search - they'll start as soon as it is safe to do so. The only thing they’ve found so far in the rest of the temple is... devastation. What you see here only gets worse the farther in you go. There are strange formations in the stone. I suggest you have a look around in particular, Cassandra," he goes on. "There deposits, some of them quite large, of what look suspiciously like the red lyrium your dwarf described.”

“He is not ‘my dwarf,’” she says with a scowl. “But... are you certain? Before Kirkwall, no one had ever heard of red lyrium. To have a collection of it here, now of all times....”

“My thoughts exactly. Another question for the young woman, I suppose.” Cullen sighs. “I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but it did feel something like lyrium, only broken and twisted somehow. I was never close enough to Meredith at the end to compare the feeling, but this set my teeth on edge. I ordered everyone to keep well away from it.”

She nodded. “Good. I will bring Varric to take a look as soon as possible. But this woman- girl- this survivor,” Cassandra looks over at the medical tent, face hardening, “you said everything was wiped out in there. Everything except for her.”

“Yes,” Cullen agrees. “Were it not for her injuries, I would assume she had wandered in after the fact. It’s likely to be some time before she wakes, however, and at least for the moment we have more pressing concerns. Have you found anything that might tell us what’s happening here? Or more importantly, what can be done about it?”

“I may be of some assistance in that regard," a smooth male voice says from a few steps down the steep hill that lead to their camp. "If you will pardon the intrusion.”

Cassandra turns toward the voice, hand instantly on the hilt of her sword, and barks out, “Identify yourself!” Cullen’s hand hovers inches from his own blade.

The man, an elf dressed in humble traveling clothes and wearing a small, worn supply pack, holds his hands up in placation. “I do not mean to startle you. My name is Solas. I am something of an expert on the Fade, and I believe that is precisely what we are now dealing with.”

Cassandra draws her blade and points it at the man before the last words leave his mouth.

"Apostate," she accuses.

“I came only to help - and at great risk to myself, as you point out." His voice calm and sincere. "I believe what is happening here may have a direct connection to the Fade. If that is the case, my assistance may prove invaluable.” He cast his eyes up to the giant swirling mass of green in the clouds, directly above the newly-made crater that was once the Temple of Sacred Ashes. “If my theory is correct, this may be a tear of sorts in the Veil itself, a Breach in this world that connects directly to the Fade, and one that is likely to attract attention from the other side.”

“What sort of attention?” Cullen asks. A simple enough test to be handed.

“If this Breach is as violent as I fear, a great many demons may be forcibly pulled through to this side, manifest without a host. If that is the case, they would likely be frantic and enraged upon finding themselves here, more violent and aggressive than normal. Worse, however, is that if left unchecked, this Breach will likely only grow worse. More violent, and more massive.”

"You are a hedge mage?" Cassandra asks cautiously. Her sword has not wavered.

"Should that matter?" He asks with apparent calm. "Technically, all mages are now apostates, are they not? Where I have trained and with whom has led only to me standing before you and offering my help. I have spent my life studying the Fade, and have learned things about it most mages - most people - cannot conceive of.” His eyes soften. “As I said, I came here of my own free will, knowing the risk of revealing myself to you, particularly at a time like this. What is happening threatens us all, mage and non-mage alike. Allow me to offer my aid, and what knowledge and skill I have are at your disposal.”

Cassandra looks briefly to Cullen and Leliana and, seeing no objection, cautiously returns her weapon to its sheath, nostrils flaring slightly as she draws a long breath. “I suppose it is too much to hope that you know what to _do_ about this?”

“Regrettably, I do not. Not yet, at least. With study, I believe I may be able to find a solution, or at the very least a way to mitigate the damage and perhaps slow its growth.”

“There is something,” Cullen hedges, casting a glance to the two women in case they should argue. “A young woman was found at the foot of this Breach, as you call it. She appears to be the only survivor. She bears a mark in her right palm that seems to... _react_ to the Breach. It swells and glows in time with it, casts the same light.” His tone sobers even further, “There is a Tear of sorts under the Breach it that is spitting demons out as we speak. She seemed to be in pain when some of them emerged.”

“A mark directly connected to the Breach?" Solas asks, a look the others interpret flawlessly as interest and concern obvious in his eyes. It sets Cullen on edge. “It could provide a key to all of this. May I speak with her? Examine the mark, perhaps? Under supervision, of course.”

“She is unconscious,” Cassandra said, voice stony. “She was badly wounded. Our healers are tending to her now.”

Solas nods. It is an elegant gesture. All of him is elegant, straight and controlled and proud. “Of course. I am trained as a healer - if you would permit it, perhaps I might examine the mark, so long as I do not interfere in their work.  I fear any delay, even the most slight, could have far-reaching consequences. This may all grow considerably worse at but a moment's notice.”

Cassandra looks behind her at the large mass in the sky, then turns back. A shadow crosses her face and she shakes her head. “Commander, I-- Will you see to this? I fear I will not be objective. I will return to Haven and arrange more soldiers and supplies to hold us over while we figure out what to do.”

“Of course,” Cullen replies. She hides the weariness and deep sorrow in her face well. It is a look only people who have known too much loss can have. For she and Leliana both, what now seems the inarguable death of the Divine is far more than a simple matter of faith. If such things can ever be called simple.

“I will likely be of no use here, so I will return as well,” Leliana says. “I will send agents to assist in the search, if you wish.”

Cassandra pulls Cullen and Leliana aside and insists that the apostate be watched closely, especially around the Breach and the young woman. “I do not trust him,” she says, “but I also understand that we cannot afford to turn away help. Not now.”

A weary, wry grin tugs at one side of Cullen’s mouth. “I'm hardly going to give him free run of the camp, Cassandra.”

“All the same. Leliana, can you spare more of your people?”

The Spymaster nods. “Of course. I will have someone look into him as well, but until we know more, you are right. We should not trust anyone.”

“The healers likely need more time to ensure she lives through the night," Cullen says. "I’ll have him wait for one of your people and ensure he’s watched until then.”

Both women agree, then give their leave and depart.

Cullen looks up at the massive wound in the sky, the “Breach,” for a moment before addressing the apostate. He is wary and tense around the man, but does his best to hide it. “I will leave it to the healers to decide when she is stable enough for any kind of examination, but I’ll ask they not be too conservative about it. In the meantime, I’m afraid I must ask that you stay within the camp. I can promise your safety so long as you give us no reason to doubt you, but until we know what has happened, we cannot be too cautious.”

“Of course, Commander. I will be ready.”

Cullen gives a nod, then enters the healing tent. Soft murmurs can be heard from inside. Murmurs to everyone but Solas, who hears every word clearly.

For his part, he looks at the entrance to the tent for a long moment until it is clear that the young woman will remain blocked from view, then turns his face up to the Breach, a crease between his brow. This child, yet one more doomed by his mistake - he can feel his magic within her, fighting a body in which it does not belong. Weariness seeps into his bones. A constant companion, of late. Of the last several thousand years. He believed watching the world from the Fade while he slept had been torture and heartbreak. He had had no idea, not until he woke to it. To the chaos and destruction of what he had wrought.

That another of his actions now, another last-moment decision made out of desperation would go so horribly awry.... He cannot make the mistake again. He _will_ not fail them again. He owes them everything after what he has taken, after the horrors they have endured, and he will see it paid. He will see them whole as they should always have been.

A tightness takes his eyes than no one who does not know him well would be able to see. Distant sounds of battle - the templar's soldiers, he supposes - are the only other thing to be heard. The wildlife has fled the area and even the very air is quiet.

The Breach swells and twists and at once, pained screams from the tent rip his attention from the sky. There is a moment of shouting before the Commander darts out, his eyes going straight to Solas.

"It's doing something, we can't hold her down!"

Solas runs forward, taking the Commander's place within the tent. The woman is thrashing, and the agony in her scent is strong enough to break through the fire and death and grief of this place. It is almost caustic. She breaks the small cot she is on and falls to the floor. He drops to his knees and grips her hand, connecting to his magic within her and calling out to it. It is wild, frantic and battling its host, screaming in time with the Breach as it wells and tries to find a place of sense in a world that can no longer afford it. The Anchor begins to settle the moment his magic comes into contact with it, but calling it down is... taxing.

Only one healer remains trying to hold her legs, but he is doing little more than getting himself injured. Solas braces a forearm on her sternum and gives a suitable impression of straining to hold her down. Fortunately, she calms quickly; as she does, the healer slowly releases her and sits back on his haunches, panting. The man is dedicated to his task, at least.

Her scent hits him, then, and he stills utterly.

By the time the healers are moving back in and the Commander is re-entering the tent, Solas' features are schooled flawlessly into a somber mask.

They are told that the mark is likely killing her. That much should be obvious to anyone, but it affords him the opening he needs; his presence in the tent is delayed no further. When finally she has been stabilized, he accompanies her to the nearby town, currently serving as the base of operations for the military movement. There, he spends roughly one week working over her in a cell heavily guarded by templars.

The irony is almost magnificent.

Once he learns indefinitely that the Anchor cannot be extracted from her - not without power he is still too weakened to command - he spends most of his time thinking on how to contain the situation once she wakes. Where has she come from? What brought her? And in what state will she be when she wakes? When he is able to get a moment with the Commander, he questions the man on where and how she was found. All he learns is that she was delirious, half-conscious at best, spoke a language no one knew, and was bloodied to within an inch of her life.

To say it is chilling would be understatement bordering on the criminal.

For now, at least, his place within the fledgling Inquisition is secure. Its intent is noble, at it will likely be the only force able to stand against what is to come. Even if he had not already determined to make a place for himself among its ranks, he certainly would now.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to skip the whole "I woke up, my hand hurt, a lady yelled at me, the sky was all f*cked up" business, go ahead to the end notes on chapter four. I'll sum up anything important there so you can carry on.
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> A note on Elvhen:  
> I won't use it unless the POV character doesn't understand it, or there's no direct English translation (like vhenan - I'll argue for this later), or words with literal translations (like da'len) that, because of the fluid and ambiguous nature of Elvhen, just don't necessarily work when translated.
> 
> Basically, I'm not going to use Elvhen just to use Elvhen.
> 
> I'll make an exception for names. I'm not going to have them walking around referring to Dirthamen as "Keeper of Many Truths" and what have you. 
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> 6/19/17: tweaks to baldo's reaction when he sees her  
> 7/16/17: back-edited for reference to her age. Some dialogue added around it.  
> 1/13/18: Leveled up - quality, character/plot understanding. Tense corrected to match future chapters. Changes are unedited, so this will be a mess until I get around to fixing it.  
> 2/23/18: Many changes to Solas. Probably rough.  
> 9/20/18: Hair color and descriptions of her eyes added, possibility of possession addressed (I assumed Cullen would still have enough lyrium in his system and, I don't know, that's a magical templar ability now)


	3. Gravity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From here on, weird quotes, "'Like this,'" denote English. Used to be it was italicized text, and it will take me a while to make the change to all the chapters, so... either or.

I jolt awake with a ragged gasp to the feel of knives stabbing into my hand and forearm.

I look down, but there is no injury, no attack, only a bright jade glow, and the pain has already calmed drastically. My hand looks... odd. I remember having the same thought about my body when I woke in the ruins. I have since been dressed, put into long, loose tunic and some sort of soft, equally loose pants. My feet have been left bare.

I am no longer outside; I am in a small stone cell dimly illuminated by torchlight from sconces outside the bars. The light is dim, but I can see into every corner and crack as if the room was flooded with daylight.

There are bits of padding, areas of dulled sensation and constricting wraps all up and down the length of me. There is even one on my face and another on my jaw. A clean, herbal smell seems to come from all over, and I only feel pain now if I go looking for it, so I assume they are bandages and poultices. There are so many, I could ram myself into a wall and probably not feel much.

Around my wrists are the thickest manacles I have ever seen. The skin under them is abraded, which strikes me as a little counterproductive given the effort someone has gone through to heal me. But I suppose a little raw skin must be preferable to having me free to move around. The cuffs are connected by a flat bar of hammered metal as wide as my leg and as thick as a finger. An elephant could be locked up with them, were the manacles larger.

Cautiously, I push up to a seated position. The pain really does seem to be not even a shadow of what it had been when I first woke in the ruins. Ruins I suddenly realize I have no idea how I had gotten to. Or where I had been before them.

I reach further and and further into my memory, more deeply and with greater concentration until I find that I have no memories at all, just a vague sense of some past, somewhere, sort of like knowing there is a room outside of this one even though I have not seen it.

I file this information away and get a better look at my surroundings.

I am on a long pad on the floor that looks to be made of animal hide and stuffed with coarse fur. Confusing, until I realize it is some sort of bedroll. It is remarkably clean given the fact that I appear to be in a literal dungeon. As I shift, I feel restraints around my ankles. The manacles there are just as unforgiving as the ones on my wrists, but these are linked by a long, heavy chain, which is secured both to a thick metal ring in the wall and to what looks like a cannonball.

Wherever I am, I appear to be in deep shit.

The clinking of metal alerts someone that I am awake - I hear voices and almost comically heavy footfalls outside my door. A man, a man _in armor,_ with a _sword,_ and a helmet and everything, walks past my cell, sparing me a sidelong glare filled with so much glacial hatred that is has me shirking back involuntarily. Another man approaches, hand outstretched and a key in his grip.

_Wait for him to open the cell, twist the key away, jam it up into the soft part behind his jaw as you unsheathe his weapon--_

I blink against the flash of information, of instinct, and he is speaking rough, terse words to me that are utterly unintelligible as he unlocks my cell. I can't help but follow the key as he tucks it back away.

Three men, postures tensed, swords drawn and held at the ready, back him as he walks in.

_Children playing at war. Left is slow and under-trained, middle is small-framed and overextending to make himself look bigger, right has a wound on his side, tender, no more than two days old, fearful for something not in this room--_

It rolls through me like an infinitesimal shiver as I note I can see their eyes through their helmets - they are cold and wary and dangerous and they are looking at me with controlled rancor. Utterly indifferent to my bewilderment, the first man approaches and beds down, undoing the manacles on my ankles. Before I can reach to touch the raw skin, he speaks again and yanks me up indelicately by the bar connecting my wrist restraints.

_A swell of rage. Twist the arm away, snap the bone, pop his neck out of place when he doubles over--_

My noise of protest is louder than it might have been, knocked off balance by the flash again of... something. Before he can react, it is chased by a crushed sound of pain. My knees buckle under me as there is a sawing stab in my hand. The light from my palm intensifies.

The man drops me to the floor with a rough shove away and draws his weapon, leveling its point at me as I hunch over on the floor, wishing to high heaven I could clutch my hand to my chest against the pain. I wait it out, controlling my breathing and trying to keep from clenching up and making it worse, but I can’t help the small whines that leak out around some of my breaths. The pain is spectacular.

Finally it subsides, and I slump over on myself, panting, cold sweat on my forehead. When I can, I straighten enough to look at the large silver-plated figures in front of me. their armor shines, clearly polished, but it is covered every inch in tiny, hairline scratches.

_Weak, lazy, pathetic children--_

The eyes of the man who had pulled me up have gone just as cold and as hard as those behind him, and several more have joined them, all with weapons drawn and ready, all watching me as if I am a rabid animal about to lunge.

_I want to smile. With this many, I might be able to have fun for a second or two--_

"אשר." The man barks a single word at me in a rough voice, and when all I do in reply is look at him in bewilderment, he leans forward, the finely-pointed tip of his blade now close enough to ram straight through my chest. He speaks again, his voice frigid with threat. "אמרתי _מעלה ,אסיר."_

I shake my head at him, a plea in my eyes. "'I don’t know what you’re saying. I’m sorry.'" It takes more than one try to get the words out. It is as though my mouth is gummed up around certain sounds. Numbed.

_Upward thrust with the manacle, grab with the foot to finish the backwards rotation of the sword, jab with same foot and it will go straight through the chest of the thin, weak "armor"--_

It is becoming disorienting, like there are too many people crammed into my head.

Confusion - no, suspicion, breaks through his wary anger, but after a moment, he takes a long step back and indicates with his chin for me to follow. Slowly and carefully so as not to alarm anyone, I get to my feet, stumbling once so badly that the men before me tense.

 _They're afraid of me,_ I realize with a jolt.

Trying to ignore the echoes of sharp, throbbing pain pulsing in my right hand, I force my expression to go utterly calm and almost submissive - the look of someone who intends no trouble. I can show them fear - that will work, but it will also only ratchet them up further. People who are afraid do desperate things.

He begins to walk backward with the same instructive look in his eye.

_Disdain, **hatred--**_

I take a slow step forward in turn. When no one lunges, I think it safe to assume I am doing as he wants and followed him out. The others in the room, seven of them, one a woman - how I know that I can only guess. Their armor is identical and faces fully covered - form a ring around me, blades pointed in and braced for me to step toe out of line. 

I realize my feet aren't cold. We are underground, and wherever we are at large, it is freezing outside - more sourceless pieces of information, though I am certain of them. The stone floor should be frigid to the touch. In fact it feels strangely smooth, much more than it should given what I can see of its rough surface. Which is also much, much more than I should be able to see unless I bend over with a torch and a strong magnifying glass. I cast a quick glance around and realized there are no shadows where they ought to be. The woman is sidestepping as she follows, flanking me, and I can see the detail of her eyes as if I were an inch away and using that same magnifying glass. I remember a fleck of blue in another woman's eye, one who had been much farther away.

I wonder if something is seriously wrong with me, if the heightened senses are a precursor of some neurological problem or attack or I don’t know what else. I tuck those worries into a box. If I drop dead, I’ll hardly have any reason to worry about any of this anymore. If I don’t, I don’t, and that will make it tomorrow's problem. And it isn’t like I can ask for help; what I need is focus and attention, not fear and speculation. I take a deep, silent breath. It only quavers a little.

_Waiting, silent and still and low in the grass like a massive cat, pupils blown wide and watching--_

The man walks me through the only door in the room outside my cell, and we are now in a much larger space, illuminated by more torchlight and with a large inset circle in the center of the floor. When I reach its middle, he stops.

"על הברכיים." He looks at me expectantly.

I have the urge to cry out a growl of sheer frustration. The last thing I want is to be unable to comply right now - how does he not understand that I don’t speak his language?

"'I told you,'" I say, struggling to keep the edge of desperate temper out of my voice and not entirely succeeding,  _"'_ _I don’t know what you’re saying._ If you think I'm playing dumb, then either you're not very bright or you think _I'm_ a moron, because how would that possibly be any help to me? None of you obviously have any idea what I'm saying. Are you not familiar with the concept of foreign languages?'" I cast a quick look around, raising my hands in helplessness as best I can. "'I’ve never been in a dungeon before but I’m pretty sure-'" I stop and swallow and try to loosen my mouth and jaw - it is still gummed up and sluggish around some of the words."'I'm pretty sure prisoner 101 says that you do what the men with the gigantic shivs leveled at your chest tell you to do. I'd like my yard time. Hell, I'd like to make it back to my cell without... air holes.'" I pause, pulse hammering, but he says nothing. There is no comprehension on my face "'I promise, if I knew what you wanted, I’d give it to you,'" I say seriously. My eyes plea for him to understand. He doesn’t seem to.

He casts a look over my shoulder, but I don’t dare follow it. Which turns out to be a good decision, because I need all my balance when something hard and heavy jabs into the backs of my knees and they crack to the stone floor.

_Weight to my left knee, hand forward, sweep the feet and when he falls with a clatter straddle him, manacle bar pressed hard into his windpipe. Close your eyes when the others step in and--_

I manage not to fall on my face, though the heels of my hands will come away with new scratches - the floor is littered in tiny fragments of stone and debris. I turn to cast a glare at whoever is behind me. All I see is the same circle of soldiers, all now backing away to form a large perimeter around me. Whoever struck me had gotten back to their place in line with great haste.

I realize exactly how afraid of me they are, and I don't bother to keep the shock from my face. I look down at my glowing hand and wonder what they know that I don't, because I am an unarmed, unarmored woman in shackles, and a room full of armored and armed soldiers are acting almost like spooked horses. I remember getting this thing, but outside of that.... Had I been some sort of criminal? I do not feel particularly inclined to deviant behavior, but that does not mean much now, down here. Do they know more about the light than I do? I wonder if I should be as afraid as they seemed to be. It certainly isn’t my stature that is making them so cautious.

I hear a door slam open and hurried - no, urgent - footfalls sound down the flight of stairs ahead of me, off to the left. Just as I look toward the noise, a woman enters the room - tall, beautiful, with a regal bearing, - _this one is skilled, still weak, not skilled enough_ - sturdy and lightly but fully armored, and she carries no helmet. She has rich skin and close-cropped black hair and the face of someone you Do Not Fuck With.

_A pleased smile--_

Her eyes are intense and they hone in on me immediately. There isn't hate there, but there is rage.

_The smile widens--_

As soon as her eyes meet mine, I realize-- I am as certain that I have never seen her before as I am that I was underground, that one of my guards is a woman, and that it's frigid outside. I am just as certain that I _know_  this woman, as if I have been close to her for many years. The impossibility of it and the truth of it grate against one another, jagged and harsh, sending an odd dissonance through my head. Through the cracks it makes, something is jarred loose.

More than my lack of memory, more than strange armored men who treat me like danger and dungeons and an alien tongue, more than senses so sharpened that it is taking everything I have not to be sick on the floor, more than any other bizarre impossibility I have come face to face with in the last five minutes, I realize that there has been something fundamentally different about this place from the moment I woke in my cell. Before that, I think, even back in the ruins. It is the air. It feels... _alive._  And aware.

It is brushing up against me like satin, cocooning me, reassuring me. Overjoyed that I am finally acknowledging it. Its presence is like that of a mate of the soul, of someone I’ve known and loved and trusted all my life. I feel it standing ready, somehow. Attentive, as if it is holding its breath and waiting on something as it weaves around and through everyone in the room, as natural and normal as the fact that water is wet and stone hard.

I look wide-eyed around because I can almost _see_  it, because if anyone else feels it, it is old hat to them.

But that isn’t all. My mind is clear, sharp and fast and unclouded, as if I have only known the feel of it covered by a heavy blanket that is abruptly gone.

I am so distracted by these things that I fail to realize the new woman (Cassandra Pentagast, Seeker, born of a noble Nevarran family - all names and titles I "shouldn’t" know) has been speaking to me.

The situation is abruptly righted by the chill of a blade as it presses against the bottom of my chin, so close that its tip pricks the skin of my throat. It tilts my head back to look up the length of shining metal to Cassandra’s dangerously unamused face.

Foreign words spark hot and sharp in the smooth, commanding tenor of her voice. Apparently no one has told her of my language problem. Her tone is colder and more mistrustful even than her eyes, and I don’t have the nerve to interrupt her to tell her I have no clue what she is saying.

Now that I am hearing more of the language, it is sturdy but not unpleasant. Pieces of it, small familiar sounds remind me of languages I have heard, though I cannot recall their names. But only pieces. As a whole it is completely new. The sounds are vibrant and robust and have a clean lilt to them. It isn’t a delicate tongue, but neither is it overly harsh.

When she finishes, I say quietly, carefully, "'I do not understand you, Cassandra. I apologize.'"

Her neck cranes back and her eyes widen, then immediately narrow to slits. The point of her blade presses in by what I know to be a perfectly controlled amount.

She looks to the armored man who entered with her and barks a question. "סיפרה לה את שמי?"

He replies, businesslike. "לא ,גברת." He goes on, respectful but bland -  _hissing disdain, he wastes time that is not his to waste_ - as if giving a report or reciting something long committed to memory. "הבאנואותה לכאן ברגע שבו התעורר .אף אחד לא דיבר איתה .היא אמרה משהו סיטרה ,אבל זה היה לשון מעולם לא שמעתי .אם היא מדברת נפוצה ,היא מסתירה זאת היטב."

She turns back to me and asks another question.

"'I don't....'" My voice falters. I clear my throat, trying to mask my angry frustration at the difficulty of something as basic as speaking, now of all times. "'Assuming you just asked how I know you, I don't know. I don’t know why I’m here, what I did, who I-'" _‘who I am,’_   I'm going to say, but the words choke off as I feel the pricking start of tears. I do not know if they are from frustration or anger or simply the fact that I have too much adrenaline running loose in me. But anger at their appearance makes them easy to force down. I feel... not just my mind, but my body, I feel like I am too many people crammed into a single space, and it is all jabbing elbows and untenable angles.

"'I don't know,'"  I say. "'Which I'm going to guess covers the answer of  virtually any question you can conceive of. Which does not matter since you have no idea what I'm saying, anyway.'"  I shake my head in apology, my immediate concern appeasing her.

Her eyes narrow at me again and she says something quietly.

It is quiet in the way of a mother who has literally become too angry to yell.

I have a strange feeling, though, as clearly as anything else so far, that despite the remarkable impression she is doing of a grizzly bear about to maul someone to death, she won’t hurt me. She wants to, but she won't. No matter what it looks like now, I am going to walk out of this room unharmed. Still, I find a part of myself quailing at her tone. I do not have a problem with that. The feeling that I am going to be fine is well and good, but I am more concerned with the blade tip pressing into my throat and the fact that she is obviously on edge about whether or not to just push it through my neck and be done with this problem.

I make my face as earnest as I can. "'Cassandra,'" I say again. Her eyes flash, and I wonder if I should avoid using her name. "'If I had the slightest idea what you wanted, I would give it to you,'" I say sincerely. "'I am honestly now impressed that Varric,'" there is recognition in her eyes in the same instant that I realize I know someone else I've never met, "'did not soil himself when you had him, and he's about a hundred times more charming than I am. I do not even think he would hold that against me, because – and I mean this with the utmost respect - Jesus Christ, woman.'"

There is a movement in what should be the darkness behind Cassandra. My eyes slide to the new figure and find a second “familiar” face. "'Leliana!'" I cry. It is out - the gut instinct, the reflex upon seeing her to call out in recognition, maybe even for her help - before my conscious mind can realize that of course she has as little idea who I am as Cassandra.

The Seeker’s blade presses into my windpipe, forcing a slight gurgle from me. I feel the unmistakable warmth of blood trickling down to be absorbed by the flimsy cloth of my shirt. She turns her face and the two women exchange words, Cassandra's sharp and impatient and angry, Leliana's quiet and thoughtful, but every bit as authoritative.

The Seeker turns back to me. Incomprehensibly, her face has gone even more hard than before, but she withdraws her sword. I sag, but before a relieved breath can finish whooshing out of my lungs, she bends down, grips the wide bar connecting the manacles on my wrists, and roughly yanks me up, even less gently than the guard who had pulled me from my cell. I can’t help the muffled cry I made at the pain it brings from my still-glowing hand, though I bite most of it back.

There is knowledge flowing through a well-worn groove: I am not weak. Part of me hisses at the very idea.

I have an odd moment of almost disembodied amusement at the fact that one of my body parts can now function as a makeshift torch. And that that fact is  _low_ on my list of present concerns.

I feel I must be having a very bizarre dream - this has a sense of unreality to it. But I know I am not. No matter what is happening, no dream feels like this.

To my shock, Cassandra unlocks and removes my manacles as Leliana ducks out the archway and up the stairs. Her footsteps are carefully rolled with the ease of many years of practice.

_Outright amusing if this is what passes for quiet, for the "silent" feet of a night hunter. These people are weeds, they deserve--_

I suck in a breath.

I have just a moment to massage my the raw places on my wrists before Cassandra is replacing the cuffs with a length of rope, wrapped several times above each hand. It is tight, but not cruelly so. I sigh quietly, but from her face, my attempt to keep it to myself is obviously unsuccessful.

Cassandra speaks a few words to me, their threat clear despite the language barrier, and motions for me to follow her. She leads me up the stone flight of steps, wrapped in an arched passageway, and out into a short, dark hallway which, after another door, opens to a breathtaking cathedral. The sudden drastic change from the dim monochrome of the dungeon is disorienting, and my steps turn halting as I blink my eyes against the brightness. The Seeker - for that is all she is toward me now - gives me only a moment to adjust before pulling us (me) along.

We pass clusters of people, all of them ragged and harrowed, a few of them armored, many in Chantry robes (another stab of odd dissonance at knowledge). We pass people moving about with armfuls of clothing, food, and other supplies. Every one of them stops and stares in silence, eyes tight with fear or anger. I stare back.

I shouldn’t be here. I don’t know how, or what that means, but I know I shouldn’t be here.

Reality grates again, up against reason, the two refusing to mesh even as I feel solid floor under my feet and stare at that reality around me.

The blistering wind that hits me the moment we step outside debases me of any hopeful shadow of doubt I might have been clinging to. 

As does the sky. In the near distance a swirling green chasm is rending it, clouds rippling around it like a great halo. It is the same vivid green as the glow emanating from my palm. A steady column of matching light holds form, connecting the hole in the sky to the ruined ground below.

Cassandra holds something out to me, a coat, it looks like. How I'm supposed to put it on with my wrists bound, I have no idea. I should take it from her. It is an offer, and I should accept. It is how truces are begun.

Something in me hisses at the very idea that a truce should need to be made. It is something that looks at Cassandra's kindness - practicality, if you prefer - with disdain.

_Too many elbows and too many knees, twisting and trying to find room where there is none, too tight, it's too tight, what is--_

Tantrums and wells of misplaced feeling accomplish nothing.

It isn't an issue anyway, the coat, because despite the fact that we seem to be in the midst of something struggling to become a blizzard, I am not cold. My tunic is thin and threadbare, my pants are no better, wind batters them both about, and my feet are bare. But I am not cold.  
  
I look down at myself, half expecting gooseflesh and blueing skin but finding neither, then back to her with a shake of my head. Even the beds of my fingernails are fine - a healthy, comfortable pink.  
  
A warning look - she is terribly good at those - follows a moment of pause before she ties it around my shoulders all the same. I don't like it. It feels as encumbering as the ropes.

People are moving everywhere, soldiers and civilians and more holy women, everyone either with somewhere to be in a hurry or nowhere to be at all and clustered together, conversations abandoned as they catch sight of us - of _me._ Though a few people look only with slight suspicion or unseeing fear or obvious trauma, the faces of most are just as hostile as those of the soldiers that had been in the dungeon with me. People give nods to Cassandra and then look at me like I am the very avatar of everything vile and repulsive in all the world.

Or the cause of whatever is happening now. It is not exactly hard to put together.

_I could laugh at the very idea that these tiny things think I would care what they thought, laugh and laugh and laugh--_

Just as I know Cassandra and Leliana, as I know of Varric, as other shadow figures push to the front of my mind with names and faces that want to be had, I find I have known that all of this would be just as it is. I remember the dungeon, and I _remember_ the dungeon. The interrogation, my life being spared, being trussed and led outside.

At least fundamentally. There is a newness to the size of the town and buildings, the state of repair and conditions and the number of people. It is supposed to be smaller, I think. Less. More humble. And yet it does not feel out of place.

I do not like today, I decide. And yet it has not even begun.

We are off and moving, and I am trying to ignore sighs of pain like old bruises through my body, the feeling of someone playing the nerves in my hand and arm with sharp electrical charges like a stringed instrument, and the glares and whispers and open staring that follow me. I shouldn't care. I feel it, I  _know_ it. No, not "shouldn't," not exactly. It's more that it doesn't bother part of me. But it bothers enough.

You can feel people's hatred, and I can feel theirs. But it is different, as though a physical, visceral reality from outside of me, instead of a chemical one that is taken in and made real by the body.

No. I definitely do not like today.

But apparently I am also a person who takes what she can get.

 

* * * * *

 

Cassandra is beyond tense, but she is focused and driven to match. Heavy impacts sound in the distance like the booms of cannons. So do shouting and cries from fear, battle and commands, mortal injuries, screeching pain and keening grief. Meteor-like green slag shoots to the earth like stars from the angry wound in the sky. The Breach. Every move it makes, every swell and fitful turn, I feel in my palm.

Cassandra begins to puff after a while - the climb is long and steep. I do not.

I don't know if it's the freedom. The open air, the fact that we are approaching the Breach, the source of all this chaos and the charred death I had woken to, but with every step I take away from the town and up into the tree-lined mountain paths, I feel more calm. I stand taller, something in me loosens and uncoils, and my breathing calms. Because with every step, every breath, every pulse, I know more about what is happening, until it comes to me like the sigh of a muscle submerged in a hot bath. By the time we are looking down on Haven from the path toward the Breach, I know everything. More than any single person alive. (Except perhaps for Mythal, I think).

I woke in the remnants of the Conclave meant to end the civil war that is tearing apart the continent. I know what caused that war. I know the name and details of the town below us and the country we are in and the world we are on. I know of the Fifth Blight (and those that came before) and the sentient Darkspawn and the disasters in Kirkwall. The machinations of the Magisters who unleashed the First Blight. I know the world’s problems, the names of its rulers and its rivalries, its history. And its future.

I know what the Breach is, really is. I know who caused it and how, I knew how it will be closed, and I know of the Rifts already appearing all over the continent and spewing out demons. I know the people I will meet, I know which ones will be close to me, and I know what the mark on my hand, the Anchor, will make me.

Herald.

Inquisitor.

As if displaced ancient magic that no one understands is enough of a qualifier for someone with no experience to lead a military movement meant to save the world from itself. 

All of it sits with the weight and familiarity of old knowledge, as if I am remembering what I couldn't recall before, rather than learning things about a world from which I know in my bones I do not come. Not a country. Not a continent. A _world._

_Alien, unfamiliar, broken and shriveled and--_

This gets quieter with every step, too, but I still feel it in there, that something more.

Words of the figure who welded the Mark into my bone and flesh come back to me: _At your feet are about to be laid opportunities and resources. Use them._

And before that: _You'll find I've taken a good deal from you. You'll think so, at least. But it's in your best interest, and I have given much more than I've taken._

And whoever- _whatever_ it had been, it had spoken in English. What the fuck was it?

_Don’t waste your time looking for me. You have many more important things to do, and I will be as dust on the wind to you and your little toys. I'll be lost until... until it is time._

My “toys” must be the Inquisition, my companions, and Leliana’s agents. And somehow, I have no doubt that it had been telling the truth, that any search would be an utter waste of resources. Which is a term I need to get used to thinking in, given how much I'm about to be put in charge of. I want very much to just stop and put my head in my hands for a moment.

My stomach roils, and it has nothing to do with any of the things that _should_ be making me feel ill. In fact, I feel no panic at all, only calm and  cool focus. Another trait of mine, I realize - remember. It is the third. They are scraps, nothings, but part of me  clings to them like a child to a favorite blanket. I have the very strange sense that I need to prove I exist.

My senses have continued to sharpen as the memories have filled my head, but it is correlation, not causation. I can see individual crystals in the snowbanks around us. I can hear bugs in cracks on the bark of trees. I am seeing new colors. Loud sounds are almost deafening, and I can hear every clench and release of Cassandra’s heartbeat. I can hear what I think is the blood moving in her veins. I can hear the heartbeats of the people below us in Haven, some fifty, eighty feet away now. And I smell  _everything,_ frozen pitch, snow, and long-dried animal dung buried under eight feet of it. I smell Cassandra’s hair and skin, and the metal and leather of her armor and what I assume is the polish she uses to maintain them. The fact that she desperately needs a bath. The sweat on her skin - old and new - even as it instantly cools in the freezing air. I smell no fewer than fifteen things I cannot begin to identify. I smell the _air._  And I am still not cold. I've "lost" the coat she tied around my shoulders, in fact.

More than once I have to stop when some new revelation makes my steps falter, or when the bursts of sensory information are too much. Given how often I hunch over on myself or clutch my head or melt the snow near my feet with vomit, Cassandra probably thinks I am in pain from the mark. She does her best to give me a moment each time, but makes it clear that we have to keep moving.

I am fairly certain she would still just like to kill me.

We pass a portcullis. I discover immediately that it is not so much that Cassandra needs a bath as it is that, apparently, no one is aware how utterly horrifying they smell. I give myself a surreptitious sniff, but find only my own scent - clean, of sun and trees and soil, things I don't know, the smell of something aged, _almost_ like old books, and the herbal scent of the bandages and poultices all over me.

As we walk along a wide, newly-built hulking stone bridge, every set of eyes tracks my progress.

Cassandra cuts my restraints after a few more warning words, at least. She goes to rummage through a one of a series of large chests up against one side of the bridge.

The Mark flares and another spark from the turbulent, agitated Breach falls, this one almost on top of us. With an ear-splitting boom, it blows apart the bridge as if it is made of brittle paper rather than mortar and stone. We go crashing down with the rubble. I hear the crunch of bone and cries cutting off abruptly as I hit the side of a rock wall, bounce off, and slam into to the hard ice below.

That "voice" tries to say something, but it is far-away and sluggish, as if drugged or tired.

I can't move even to find my breath, and I can't concentrate outside of not letting myself panic over it. When I am finally able to suck in a shallow pant, then another and another, each deeper than the last, I start examining myself for serious injuries and am stunned to find nothing but a few new bruises. The fall has to have been at least fifteen hard, debris-littered feet.

Cassandra shouts something urgent and my head snaps up. Her sword is out, and she is running to engage a four of the most horrifying creatures I can conceive of.

_Warped, wrong and twisted and bent, all wrong, **wrong--**_

Like an instinct or reflex, the life in the air moves around me, pushing and pulling and urging me to get up. I react as if practiced, as if I have done this before. But as soon as I am on my feet, I realize I have no idea what to do, and whatever impulse drove me to stand is gone silent. I cast a last glance at Cassandra and she her throw her shield up and absorbs a two-fisted blow from a rage demon. It is a hulking thing nearly twice her height, made of billowing heat, muscle and claws, and a fury I can feel like the pressure in the air during a storm. More than that, it sucks away at any sense of my own righteous anger, driven fury, physically pulling them out of me.

I turn urgently to look around, pushing rocks aside - perhaps a sachet or chest survived the fall - but I find nothing. In the end, I can do nothing but watch, worried over my captor - the captor I  _know_ -  taking a pounding two dozen feet away.   
  
Out of nowhere I feel a blinding, white-hot pain in my back. I cry out and arch away, putting a foot out to catch my weight. The voice comes again, but it isn't a voice this time, it is _me_ , and as fast as I had gotten to my feet, I pivot and turn the motion into a spin - I am on ice, but my footing is certain - throwing my hand out in a slicing motion--

And the head of a despair demon, fingers moulded to claws and wet with my blood, separates from its body. Its form remains upright for a second or two and I swear it looks _confused_ , before it topples sideways to the ice. The whole of it breaks apart like sticky sand and simply... vanishes.

Chest heaving like a bellows, staring fixedly where it had disappeared, I realize Cassandra is no longer fighting. I hear her steps approach, then her voice behind me. It is... wary?

I blink and turn to her, out of place in time.

_A sea of enemies, more, ready--_

Why is she looking at me like she's angry? Like I'm dangerous?

We have a bewildering sort of standoff, until I realize my hand is still in the air. I lower it, and then... I know this feeling. Coming down from adrenaline. My field of vision is narrowing and gentling, background sounds and smells are coming back. But it is more than that. Something is fuzzy, almost numbed. I realize I am trembling a little. I realize my back is very, very wet.

I put fingers behind me, curled only just around my side and swipe at whatever is there. Is it black? Was there... is it something the demon left?

My fingers come away red. 

I'm glad Cassandra can’t tell me anything. When you know, it hurts worse. With how wet it is, I'm already worried enough. Given our position, though, I can't afford to be ginger with it. Which means I don't need to be urged to hurry any longer.

The look of worry in her eyes - the eyes of a woman who knows battle and blood - is a damning thing.

I'm stoic. I feel that about myself. And now I'm pissed that I might have come through all of this bullshit only to die in the snow of a cursed mountain on a world that isn't mine. That strangers (not strangers?) who speak an alien language might be arguing my guilt over my corpse.

My face has gone hard, and I brush past Cassandra and toward the gentlest bank I see in our small valley so we can get back to the path. The moment I try to hoist myself up on the grade, I wince and grunt in pain. It is followed by an angry growl.

Cassandra says a soft word behind me - soft for her - and approaches once I turn to look over my shoulder. She moves past to climb up first, then gets down on her belly on the frozen ground and holds a hand down to help me up. I look from it to her, a little surprised. Maybe even a little suspicious.

It's only a moment before I am taking the offered hand and doing everything I can to hide the _excruciating_  tearing pain in the flesh of my whole back. Tears - an involuntary physiological response to extreme pain, different from crying - prick at my eyes and I wipe them away callously.

Even in the frigid air, the blood coming from my wound stays warm. It's leaking out so fast that it has no real chance to freeze. I can already feel it seeping down the back of my trousers like the flow of warm sap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 4/29/17: Characters added for Common  
> 5/1/17: I THINK I fixed all the references/quotes/gender pronouns to match the update to the prologue  
> 5/4/17: Added a tiny bit about her mouth gumming up around certain words  
> 1/25/18-ish: Level up, same reasons/warnings as usual  
> 2/15/18: Cleaned up. Then made a bunch more changes because plot reasons.  
> 10/3/18: English changed from italic to triple(ish) quotes


	4. A Question Without an Answer

I study the Mark as we walk. It's helping me keep the use of my mind. It's actually beautiful, when it isn't making me want to saw my arm off; it's like a long, jagged tear in fabric, like a thin weave that was caught on a branch and yanked too hard. I know the Rifts we'll close will look the same. But under the green leak of Fade magic is a gentle iridescence, visible when the light hits it just right, like old scar tissue, but in a multitude of watered-down colors. The Mark continues to gleam and pulse and tug and grow in fits and spurts, mirroring the Breach. It feels like it is screaming, like some great leviathan thrashing about far above us because someone forced it out of the ocean. But no one else knows it’s a living thing. 

Balls of stone and green fire continue to drop from the Breach like meteors. They pepper the ground nearer and nearer to us as we approach, and I feel ajar in time and space, like the world is tilted one degree to the side, but I am not. It doesn’t feel like blood loss. It isn’t confusion, it isn’t cotton in my mind.   
  
The one time I can't stop myself from collapsing under the pain of the Anchor, I recover to the sounds of battle ahead, and an odd sense of trepidation winds around me. When we're near enough that Cassandra can hear them, she gestures for me to hang back. She has been staying very close, but trying not to seem like it. I'm so peaky that I have no problem agreeing with her order. Then the moment she's out of sight, it feels like a grappling hook lodges behind my sternum and tugs.

I sigh tightly and break into a ginger trot.

When the battle comes into sight, my hand immediately makes that slicing motion again, and a fear demon, gaunt and tall and undulating, is cut from shoulder to hip before it can dive at Cassandra’s side. It keens and evaporates into nothing before it hits the ground. Except I hadn't really chosen to do it. It had been like ducking when you realize something is about to hit you in the face. Muscle memory, or instinct. But this bit, the magic, is one of the things that feels like it does not belong to me.

I feel, somehow, the static jolt of shock from outside of myself, and when I look up toward it, I see Solas, his eyes wide, his pupils dilating.

I meet his stare and cant my head at him. Something inside me is humming-- no, purring? as I look back.

Cassandra is glaring at me while Varric asks Solas an interested-sounding question. She's definitely angry because I didn’t do as I was told. And possibly because a large amount of whatever horrid vitriol had constituted the fear demon's blood and innards has been sprayed over her entire front. Why didn't it disappear with the rest of its owner?

I look back at her, and give a little half shrug. "'I'd tell you I was sorry, but I don't really think I am.'"

“היא לא נראית כל כך טובה,” Varric murmurs uncertainly. Concerned? Wary? It’s to Cassandra, but he’s looking at me. I glance down and end up examining my hands. The beds of my fingernails are a worrying color. Probably I’m too pale in the face.

They stand amid the ruins of a large building, or perhaps a long passage in a small castle, a valley made of what remains of its towering walls. Soldiers are with them, five on the ground, three gone from the world. Knowing that comes the same way as knowing one of my jailers had been a woman. One of them looks like he has been partially... eaten. Another has had his arm ripped from the socket, clean, like a chicken’s leg snapped from the carcass.

I am not squeamish, apparently.

Whatever Cassandra is going to say to Varric is cut off, because I double over, gritting my teeth around a grunt of pain, and more demons pour from the Rift, shrieking and mad.

Our people all dive back into the fight. Barriers do up and a bolt lodges itself in the neck of a towering rage demon just as Cassandra ducks away from it, avoiding a massive swing and bashing her shield up into its oversized jaw. Bits of red- and white-hot that I think might be pointed teeth fly away from its eyeless face.

Solas is fighting as hard as the others, his attention is on the demons, but I can  _feel_ his focus riveted to me. Every spell fired, every swing and twirl of staff, every flex of muscle and manipulation of magic, it's all in the back of his mind.

I turn to the Rift sitting feet away against the edge of a steep drop, grit my jaw, and brace my right arm with my left hand. The instant my palm is raised to it, a sparking beam of light, jumping as if electric and fluid at once, joins the mark to the Rift, and along that beam I feel... _life._ A full, rich world beyond the Rift, light as helium. The presence in the air around me surges and swells.

Over what feels like a paralyzing electric current, shards of life connect to my own - the demons that have been pulled into this world. They are tied and tethered to the other side as if by invisible cords - thus the reason we can't close a rift until they're all gone. Can we not just push them back through? And would that be a kindness or a cruelty?

Fast as I can think it, the Mark responds and yanks the cords together into a tight bundle and _contracts_ the Rift around them. It’s like kinking a hose, and to a one they go still and limp. I can feel their strange disorientation, fuzzy and tired, almost drugged. Our people dive in savagely to take advantage of the lull.

I release my hold on the Rift to help with the fight, but the demons regain themselves almost immediately, so that’s out. But the strain just to establish the connection and hold it as long as I did already has my whole arm feeling like gelatine. I grit my teeth and hunker down, and silently urge the others to Hurry. Up.

The instant the last demon is wiped out, my wrist gives a twisting flick and I hold, my whole world contracted to that luminous green scar, willing the frayed and invisible, snapped strings around it to stitch themselves back together. Every muscle in my body is trembling of its own accord. My back is wet with fresh blood and alive with cold fire growing more loud and insistent by the moment. It's as if something in the center of my chest is breaking right along with this wounded piece of the universe. It isn’t a physical thing to close it. It isn’t a magical thing. It is a _personal_ thing, and it _hurts._

The Rift sinks, smaller and smaller, until the jagged, stabbing shard of crystal appears on this side of it, the chaos of it in physical form. I take the strands in hand and I _yank,_ severing them from their mooring on the other side and shattering the piece of the Fade that persists - the crystalline shape at its heart, holding it up like a pillar, making the shifting nature of the Fade manifest here in the physical world.

The moment it is closed, I plummet to the ground atop mud, and snow gone pink with blood. I am hunched over, breathing so hard I am nearly sobbing -  _am_ I sobbing? I feel like I just lost a piece of myself - fighting for control over my own body. I think I might be moaning, soft clipped sounds that come with the start of each exhale.

They cheer, the others. A full, sweet scent fills the air, and I realize that up until then it had been washed with a stinging sharpness almost like ammonia.

I am going too cold, too close to a lightheadedness I won’t be able to pull back from. I cannot lose consciousness. I can’t. I just need... just need....

Varric speaks, huffing a laugh. "אתה באמת מוצא את האנשים המעניינים ביותר .חרא ,המחפש."

Cassandra replies. "שתוק, Varric. בצעו אחת מהפעולות יש לך שיקויים?" Her questions sounds so urgent as to almost be strained.

I am teetering on an edge, and I can’t tell what side I am going to come down on. I focus on my breath, I keep it in my belly, I make it slow down. I hold on to the sounds of the others’ voices.

Varric rumbles something and there is the sound of hasty footsteps and rummaging. Cassandra approaches, so quietly it’s as if she’s nearing a startled horse, despite the heavy armor. She crouches in front of me and slides a gentle, almost tentative hand onto my shoulder. She’s taken her gauntlet off, and gives a careful sweep of her thumb over the thin, rough material of the shirt. A gesture of concern. Of comfort.

I brace myself and look up.

And I see Solas. There is something very strange and intense in his eyes belied by his light tone when he speaks a few words to me. “אתה בסדר, lethallan?”

I give a weak, dismissive little laugh, and that thing in me, where the "voice" has been coming from, the instinct, sets to purring again, and I feel warm. Then I feel dizzy, and white swells in my field of vision, followed too quickly by black around the edges and I think, _This is it, this is where I pass out._

But I don’t pass out. I don’t, and when I look up again, my face contorted, I catch him, and I think he looks even more confused than I feel. And something else is there, too. It looks like... longing. For an instant, I would swear I see agony. My heart clenches.

Varric says something dry. It makes Solas stand and back away, his face schooled into an appropriate mask before the others can see it. I'm staring at him as Cassandra takes his place and holds a hand out to me with a look between Solas and I.

“את יכולה לעמוד?” Her voice is uncommonly gentle when she asks me a question, and nearly all the suspicion has disappeared from her eyes.

One of the soldiers approaches and tells Cassandra something with a somber shake of her head. The Seeker’s lips thin, and I take her hand with my left - my right feels useless, the whole arm boneless. I stand gingerly, only to stumble forward into her with a sudden swell of dizziness. I can’t seem to catch my breath - each one is strangely shallow, and I feel... I feel like I am going to float away. Like I’m too light.

Bad signs.

I want to growl in frustration. What I do is hold up a hand and say, "'Sorry. Sorry.'"  I grip Cassandra’s arm to steady myself until I feel like I can stand on my own. I’m careful and slow as I lean away from her.

I finally let myself really look at our dwarf. "'Hello, Varric. Bianca,'" I say, my voice soft, but like thin paper. My expression is warm, if pathetically weak. There is cold sweat on my forehead. I dab my arm across it.

Varric looks at Cassandra, wry amusement on his face. “סיפרה לה עליי ?אני מוחמא .אבל--”

She cuts him off with sharp words as she herds me, trying to get us moving. “תהיה בשקט, Varric. אנחנו צריכים לגרום לה מרפא או כל זה יהיה לחינם .יהיה זמן לשאלות מאוחר... .אם היא אפילו יכולה לענות עליהן.”

“היא זו אשר לא נראה תמהר,” Varric says something churlish and grumbling, and when Cassandra looks away, he casts a worried glance at me.

Solas speaks, something brief, but it makes Cassandra pause, just long enough for him to hold a staff out from one of the felled soldiers. With the speed of a hand yanking away from a hot iron, my lips curl in disgust and I yank away. The presence in the air swells like an angry cat at the very suggestion of the thing.

I see something on Solas's eyes. I don't know how, but I know beyond any doubt that the others won't have caught it. It’s a lot of something, but I can’t parse what exactly. That's when I realize there's something strange about him. Well, something _more_ strange.

Solas is a blank space in my mind, like the outline of a man with nothing inside.

I know his temperament, his tastes, his skills. I know he is a good person, if a dangerous one under the wrong circumstances. I know he holds secrets. That he is an old soul. He is a man who, more than any other, is not what he seems. He is a river at the heart of an ancient glacier.

I know enough about him, I think. But that _isn’t_ enough, because he has no context.

I know where everyone who will be close to me comes from, and where they will go. Not Solas. He has no past, no future. It is as if he sprung fully-formed from the earth, presented himself to Cassandra after the explosion in the temple, and then puffs out of existence once Corypheus is gone. He simply stops as if the edge of a wall. He is a question without an answer, and the dissonance of it is like bugs crawling over my skin. Still, that thing inside me is humming like I am a tuning fork exactly matched to his frequency.

Imprisoned below the Chantry, I had known Cassandra wouldn’t hurt me, even though I’d had none of that context through which to trust the feeling. I have it now. I have had it tested and applied to three dozen different things since we left Haven. And through it, Solas is a thing with blurred edges, so jagged that I feel if I get too close, I will be torn to pieces by them. Unmade.

He gives me a bemused look, and there is half a universe buried under it, something pressing and something studying, as if I’m an equation that won’t quite tally. I feel like he's on the edge of something - I feel like I almost am, too - but I have no clue what. And he's trying to say something wordlessly, but I can't figure that out, either.

Cassandra's voice brings me back, obviously giving an order, and I turn from his tall, broad form, with a deep furrow between my brows. As we get moving, I grip Cassandra’s forearm while she hovers next to me, ready for me to stumble. Solas is on my other side for the same reason, a hand held out and ready behind me. Watching me, like he had been during the fight. Intently. It’s as if he is waiting for something. I turn and stare at him until I stumble. Then all I do is focus on walking and staying conscious. Except for that little piece in me that's tuned to him. 

At length, he speaks again, his voice rich and warm and gently quiet. It is not Common, but I think... yes, there is just enough that I recognize it. Elvhen. I look over at him again, the groove back between my eyes. _"Why would I speak_ elvhen?" I ask with a little shake of my head. It feels like the motion continues after I've stopped.

A little crease finds its way onto _his_ face, and there it is again, that snap of shock that doesn't come from me. There's something new there now, too: excitement. I don't know how, but they're coming from him, I'm sure of it, even though he's perfectly keeping them from his face. This time, though, as quickly as they show up, the feelings disappear, and I am left with the the impression of something titanic moving under the surface, kept down by diverted attention and a careful blankness.

He mutters something lyrical to the others, something that sounds so sagely and know-it-all that I have to laugh. I can't manage much, and what I do costs me. I assume it's a smooth excuse for his random trip down dead-language road. I keep moving. I have to keep moving.

Stumbling, technically. But no one’s going to fault a bizarre, mortally wounded alien for trying.

 

* * * * *

 

Solas is carrying me by the time we make it to a guarded supply cache - when I stumbled too many times, he volunteered and stepped in before anyone could answer. I am too weak to put up a fight or argue, and my head leaned against his chest feels... almost familiar. Or at least welcome. 

Cassandra has run ahead and is shouting at the stationed men long before we actually get there, which has one of them is running out to meet us. I am carefully sat down on a snowless rock and leaned against something solid, but not cold. It is perfectly situated to avoid the worst of my wounds. Someone touches my neck, my face, but the world is too black and numb for me to hurt because my sense of touch is as keyed up as everything else.

Voices are under water. I cannot open my eyes. I cannot hold my head up. A hand supports it and guides it gently back as a liquid is slowly trailed into my mouth. It is a small enough amount that I am able swallow.

There is a wash through me, as if I’ve been injected with adrenaline, but much more gentle. It’s like gauze is being peeled off of my insides, my muscles and nerves and mind, just a few thin layers, but I feel the difference.

After a second swallow, voices stop being muddy and muffled. After the third, I can hold my own head up, and after the fifth, I am opening my eyes.

“זה לשתות,” Cassandra’s distinctive voice says, the way she can sound commanding and caring at the same time. I feel the support leave my back, replaced by a tentative hand. Varric. He is standing next to me, Bianca’s grip jutting up over one shoulder.

A tiny, opaque green bottle is pushed at me, a cork stopper removed, and I tip back the contents. There’s hardly anything inside; each of my swallows must have been an entire bottle. Healing potions, I realize. I feel a sense of excitement and unreality at the same time. Wonder. I almost laugh.

Cassandra looks at me like I might be a little unhinged.

Two more potions and I am standing, my feet solid under me, my head clear, my muscles strong, but she insists I take another. There is a pile of the little bottles near her feet.

I let myself experience this one. It can’t hold more than a tablespoon or two of liquid. The cork comes out so easily, I wonder that they don’t pop open in people’s bags and pockets all the time. The potion itself has a clean, light smell, similar to my poultices but almost bland, and less earthy and rich. I kick it back, and the flavor almost hints at sweetness with a cool undercurrent that is not quite like mint, but it is more sensation than anything. It is heavy on my tongue and it lingers, though it is thin and fluid as water. As soon as it passes my throat, I feel it again - gauze being peeled away. And that’s all it is. No warmth, no tingle, just... better.

Except for my back. It pricks, and tickles as if sugar ants are crawling all over it. The sensation is not unpleasant, just _strange._ And my back hurts more. Counterintuitive, perhaps, but a good sign, I figure, especially since the new pain is already lessening; the injury isn’t severe enough that my body has to expend energy protecting me from the hurt of it.

I wonder with interest what a lyrium potion would feel like, then remember they are made of the blood of ancient titans and am suddenly glad I haven’t needed any yet.

I turn at the waist - farther than I should be able to, I think - and watch the lowest part of it, down past the small of my back - it doesn’t look right - just sort of pulling itself together. The view is made easy by the fact that mostly, that half of my shirt isn’t there anymore.

When it’s done, an impressive scar is left. I feel along my back - it goes all the way up, almost to my neck. I look in confusion to Cassandra, who is wiping away what blood she can from her armor. My blood. The amount is sobering. And my query is pointless, since I can’t understand what she says in reply, anyway.

The backside of my pants all down past my thighs are drenched in the hardening stuff. I look back the way we came and pale at how much red is in the snow. Varric is bloody, and Solas - I can’t see Solas, he’s kneeling, rummaging in the supplies.

I run fingertips over my back again, and think of other scars. Cassandra has them. Cullen. The Iron Bull is covered in them. I think I had always assumed healing wasn’t available to them in the right place, at the right time, or that they chose to keep certain scars. Maybe that’s not the case. The Iron Bull’s eye certainly wasn’t grown back.

I can gesture the question to Cassandra easily enough, but now is not the time. My skin is whole and healed, I feel well-rested and strong again, and we have work to do. But when a breeze blows past, I realize my shirt isn’t covering much anymore - not that it matters, cold as it is outside and thin as the fabric is - and will cover even less if the wind hits me just right. I find or make strips of shredded material in the right places and start tying them together as I set out with a nod of my head - ‘Let’s go.’

When I reach the cache, I stop. Solas smells heavily of blood. When he stands and faces me, his whole front is covered in bright red. My eyes widen as I remember the support behind my back as I was being fed potions. The support that had vanished the moment it wasn’t strictly needed any longer.

His face is a polite, benign mask.

I don't like it. I don't like him hiding like that. Not from me. I feel it with such intensity that all I can do is turn away as I press a little, tentatively, at the place where I'd felt something more from him by that first Rift, but the air is as still and silent as it had been before.

I move to continue walking with a shake of my head, but someone puts a hand on my arm. Varric. He has shrugged off his thick, heavy overcoat and is holding it out to me. His arms are... impressive. I gape at them a little, and hurry to look away when he catches it and grins.

I glance at the coat, then look down at myself. It really is like I’m dressed in gauze. You can probably see every detail of my form if the light is behind me, and I’m not certain my nipples will ever completely soften again.

And I don’t care. I smile down at him in thanks, but give a little shake of my head. I should have severe frostbite by now. I should be blue. I’m not, and no one will have missed that fact. I feel no fear about my differentness, nothing that urges me to hide it, and apparently I am not modest. The fact is that I just can’t be bothered. Everything that is coming is going to be challenging enough enough without trying to hide whatever I am. Whoever I am. And the fact is that though I do feel the cold, it is pleasant if anything, like a sharp autumn day.

I comfort myself anyway with the fact that Solas, dressed only slightly more warmly than me and just as barefoot, seems to be fine, too, so at least I am not the only odd one. I almost laugh. “Normal” people will be the odd ones by the time I’m done gathering my group to me. Granted, I am likely the first such human anyone has seen, but I speak a language no one has ever heard and have impossible Fade magic in my hand (I am the only one who knows _how_ impossible). With that and half the shit I know is coming, “strange” is going to be par for the course.

Varric gives me an “Are you sure? It’s freezing out here,” look, but I shake my head again, a smile creasing the corners of my eyes. He is a genuinely good soul, I think. I feel the warmth of someone who has known him for nearly a decade and a half.

This is a very confusing day.

Cassandra gets my attention. She points to herself and says her name, then does the same for Solas and Varric. Then she gestures to me, expectant.

I open my mouth automatically to answer, only to realize I have nothing to say. I close it. My eyelids flutter. I try again, as if simply parting my lips will put the information, the simple, most basic information, where it should be. It doesn’t.

I push and plumb my mind, but find only a blank, echoing space with something dancing around the edges, as hard to get ahold of as a wet slug. My face contorts in frustration and I shake my head, brows knitted together and mouth pulled down, with an almost flippant shrug of my shoulders.

They exchange glances. Solas looks almost transfixed, as if he has come upon an advanced math problem and is glad for the challenge of it. But he also feels... worried. Cassandra sighs wearily and turns to set us to moving again.

 

__* * * * *_ _

 

We reach another portcullis. Behind it is a massive stone bridge, wider, longer, and stockier than the last.

This one, fortunately, does not get blown up.

At a tall but diminutive tent near the far end we come upon Leliana arguing with Roderick. Which is mostly Roderick arguing and Leliana looking like she'd prefer to shiv him than try to pierce his iron-clad pig-headedness. Everything about her is as I "remember," except that her uniform is more crisp and her cowl is a perfect, snow-white crushed velvet, and her face is beautifully but subtly lined with age.

I watch Roderick with silent, cool, knowing eyes, even once he tries to pull me into the conversation. I see a flash of uncertainty in his expression at my perfect calm, but I would be surprised if he knew it was there. The argument is over fast in any case. Cassandra, Leliana, Solas, and Varric exchange words, with more than one glance in my direction while I quell the itch I have urging me to hurry along. My eyes are on the Breach. When we do leave the bridge, ft the bridge, turn a bend, walk a rugged, narrow dirt trail tamped down amid the snow, I realized I know exactly where we are.

Up ahead, the narrow dirt path widens and forks. To the right, it crests a long, steep hill to where I know the remains of the temple sit. I can smell the ash, the magic. To the left, the path narrows and twists and leads, after a long climb up rustic ladders, to a system of caves that pilgrims and travelers aren’t meant to enter.

Cassandra and the others are exchanging words with a trio of soldiers while I stand to one side taking in the snow and pines. The smell of something stringent and acrid makes me wrinkle my nose. I know they are discussing which direction to go in, so I unceremoniously interrupt.

I walk up and Clearly say, "'Cassandra.'" When she looks over, I point to the soldiers. Then I put the side of a hand to my brow and motion as if searching the distance. I hold up four fingers, then point to the side path.

Her eyes widen. She says something to me, incredulous and hesitant, but after giving me a long, probing look - the blatant anger and distrust are mostly gone, at least - she nods and speaks. Her voice and face are uncertain, but her authority no less clear for it. It is a good thing, to see someone so deserving - so capable - in charge of this mess.

 

__* * * * *_ _

 

We pass one last pine tree on our way up and I stop, looking up at its branches.

The body moves. The mind moves. Impulse, instinct. Whatever you want to call it.

When I reach up and snap one of the branches off, I smell a tang in the air, and look toward it to find Varric looking openly unsettled, and Cassandra grim. I don’t look at Solas.

I raise my brows as if to say “what?” before I stand the branch up between my feet and then run my hands down it, cleanly snapping off the fronds. I rub my palms together and close my eyes, and with a second pass of my hands magic compresses the wood into a perfect, hardened, slim, reinforced cylinder. I shape blades on each end as if working with clay rather than wood, and run their edges between two fingers to sharpen them. The cutting edge of everyone else's weapons are pocked by chips and scratches they can't see, and it's no wonder they have to work so hard to wield the things. I pluck up the staff and give it an experimental twirl, my hands moving with the practiced ease of dance. It is sturdy, but with some give. _“Perfect,”_  a silent voice purrs in approval.

The others watch me approach. Then they watch me walk by.

They don’t catch up until I have reached the first of the ladders.

 

* * * * *

 

Our progress through the pass is quick and almost surgical. The others are so seasoned that they fight well together despite having only a day's experience as a team, and for my part? I am a well-honed blade, and I move as if I have battled a thousand thousand times and cut down countless enemies.

I run into the first fight, and I am a dancing mass of precision, striking like a barrage of hardened stone, dodging as easily as wind moves through leaves, flowing like the eddies of water, and the bladed ends of my staff, when I use them, cut through demon flesh as easily as air. To say I am much faster than the others is a laughable understatement, and I read their actions and the demons' as if looking at terrain from high above, able to see what they can't down on the ground. More than that, the demons are predictable - every lash, every shift, every roar and moan.

The staff is a perfect extension of my limbs, spinning and snapping, giving me a boost to vault behind an enemy. I use magic as I strike and move, and even more than my weapon, there is no point where my body stops and it begins. My kills are quick, clean, and efficient. And I protect the others as I do so, though it annoys me to split my attention. But Solas’ barriers are weak, and for some reason, it is so offensive as to almost be visceral.

When the fight is over, the elf gives me a veiled look as if I am part wonder, part puzzle, part concern. Varric makes a remark, wry as ever, but he sounds a little dazed, and more than a little unsettled. Cassandra seems stuck between uncertainty, unease, and suspicion.

During the second fight, I put something together: what I am doing, what I have been calling magic... well it is magic, but it isn't “normal.” 

I do not think I have ever used it before, but it is practiced as breathing, just like the instinct to make my weapon, just like every step in combat. Despite that, I am somehow clearly not doing the magic _right._ I'm not casting spells, exactly, and nothing I do is tiring.

It is the air, that presence. It is as if it _is_ me, but also not. Larger and extended, more and less real, more and less solid. We are one entity, moving with push and pull as though muscles in a limb. I move and it reacts. It urges and I follow with the speed and ease of turning to look when you see movement. It is instinct, too, but it is more. It is muscle memory, and the trench in which that lives, the well from which it pulls, is so deep there is no bottom. It moves through me, as if I am more a conduit than a sentient creature. But it feels right that it should be this way.

It is like a beloved childhood friend you had somehow forgotten you ever had, and it has shown up in a world where the best you could have hoped for is to be ignored entirely, alone utterly.

After a particularly intense fight against four dripping, shifting, black and gray despair demons, a hulking rage demon, a remorse demon, a handful of shades and three rigid, diamond-solid terrors, it swells and compresses inward, angry and urgent. I turn and see the remorse demon, who we have apparently lost track of, emerging from the ground, hauling back to stab an appendage into Varric’s back.

I shout a warning and whirl a hand around, I don’t know why. But the presence in the air surges out along it and the demon is slammed to the ground. With a skin-crawling shriek it is crushed to death by an invisible force and it explodes outward, pelting Varric, Solas, and the rockface of the passage with the horrid, tar-like black vitriol that constitutes its blood and innards.

It smells _horrifying._

For a long moment it is quiet, but for the occasional sound of a chunk of demon falling from the wall or ceiling. Varric turns and says something to me, utter, droll disgust on his face. I half-grimace an apology and despite my best efforts, can't entirely suppress amusement.

This does not please him.

No one seems concerned about the gut-churning smell, which I chalk up to my enhanced senses. (Not long after, the mess vanishes on its own, like the bodies of the demons do, and I wonder if my assumption was wrong). Solas offers me a mana potion, but I turn my nose up at it, almost as I had done with the mage staff. He looks at me as in-line as ever, but his eyebrows arched. Like I am a curiosity. I cannot deny some sort of extra something every time we look at each other. All I can think it feels like is connection, but one of very few things I know is that I am not from this world.

Varric has taken notice of that something extra, too. Fortunately, he doesn't seem to be drawing what most people would consider the most obvious conclusion.

The demons themselves seem mindless, as if they are driven mad with pain or panic. The first thing they do upon finding themselves here, after all, is run straight at the angry people with sharp weapons and snapping magic. It is hurting something in me, _they_ are hurting me. Most if not all of them likely are not demons before they are ripped from their world and shoved into this one. Perhaps it is sympathy that pricks at me, but I do not think so.

I set the pain aside with an ease that has me wondering if I should be worried about who I am. Whose memories I want back.

 

* * * * *

 

By the time we make it to the haphazard but impressively organized base camp just outside what must have been the main entrance to the temple, injured scouts in hand, the acrid smell I’d picked up on is so overpowering that I have to fight not to cover my nose. I probably look like I am disgusted by the dirt or “savagery” of it until my nose adjusts and the smell relents.

I take in the thick canvas tents, one of them massive, but all tall enough to stand up in. The cookfires with boots laid out near their edges to dry, stocks of weapons and armor, and the fact that nearly everyone around us is bandaged or otherwise injured in some way. The scent of blood is nearly as strong as the astringent smell. People are tight and afraid.

I hear a familiar voice like chocolate and warm citrus. It calls out, and at the same moment I see his gaze pass over me from the corner of my eye, then do a double-take. His heart rate spikes and I turn to him, my brows raised in a benign, friendly sort of greeting.

The expression widens into something like the awkward younger sibling of a gawk when I see him, and a jolt, fast and sharp, uncoils in my chest like the bite of a severed cable.

There is attractive. The kind that will catch you off-guard and make you trip over your own tongue. You’ll see a few people that good looking in your life. And then there is the sort of attractive ninety-nine point nine percent of people - I’m guessing from my reaction that I fall well into that number - will never see anywhere but in a picture.

I shouldn’t be blamed, then, for the way I don’t react quickly when his eyes widen and he strides toward me, yelling as if angry, and pulling off his stoled half-cape.

When he tries to cover me with it, his anger turned on Cassandra, it snaps me awake and I duck out of the way, hands up to tell him to stop. The Seeker holds out a hand toward me, and her face very clearly says 'See? I told you so.'

Cullen looks at me worriedly and speaks in a voice that is obviously meant to be calming and reassuring.

I crack him a half-grin, almost incredulous, and say, "'All that, and a kind heart. No wonder you’re the south’s most eligible bachelor.'"I lean in and whisper."'Just don’t fall in love with me. I’m trouble.'"

I hear a stifled laugh and a scent that somehow matches it, but when I look around, no one else seems to have heard it. I turn back to Cullen. "'I could listen to you talk all day, but I'm pretty sure I should get down there so that angry hole in the sky doesn’t eat the world. Well,'"I amend, face turning sober as I look up at it, "'not as quickly, anyway.'"

I look back to Cullen and I don’t know why, but neither of us looks away. It feels like a curiosity is passing between us. It goes on until I hear his pulse surge again, and the barest hint of color creeps into his cheeks. Varric says something jocular that makes the Commander clear his throat and look away, then say something in a serious voice.

Varric is grinning like he’s watching a comedy.

Cassandra touches my arm and recites names as she points again. “Cassandra, Varric,” then she gestures to everyone in front of me. Cullen, the soldiers milling about, the injured.

I nod, then turn back to the Commander. "'Cullen Stanton Rutherford,'" I say, and his eyes go wide. "'Former Templar, Knight-Commander in Kirkwall, currently Commander of the Inquisition. Doesn’t write his sister Mia often enough, and really, how hard is it to take a moment to write, 'Hello family, not dead, love, Cullen?'"

They understand enough of that for a sense of somber foreboding to take them all again.

“איך היא יודעת מי אני?” Cullen asks Cassandra. “מצוא הסיי _יא עצרה_ אותנ?”

“היא ידעה כולנו Leliana כשתתעורר,” the woman replies heavily. “האישה משיבה בכבדות ,היאידעה של Varric, והיא נראתה לדעת סולאס גם כן .למרות התגובה שלה אליו הייתה קצת פחות חמה מאשרSolas כולנומקבלים .קאלן מציץ סולאס ,ואני רואה מידה של חשד בפניו.” Cullen glances at Solas, and I see a measure of suspicion in his face.

Solas looks at me. “חוכמה הקניית.” His voice is calm, and has that ‘imparting wisdom’ tone to it. “סולאס מביט בי ,כל קוסם הוא שונה, והיא ללא ספק מיומן, ומצבי תודעה ,אולי היא באה כדי לשייך הקסם שלי עם הכאב שלה.”

“על,” Cassandra goes on, “הנחתי שזה עשוי להיות זהה איתך .היא גם ידעה איפה למצוא הסיירים החסרים שלנ ו .היא עצרה אותנו ,הכביש פה ציינו שהם היו עוברים .הם היו מתים אם לא בשבילה”

Cullen looks at me this time, face going serious.

Our eyes lock again, but I break it this time by saying "'Adan,'" and turning in his direction. He's too far to hear. "'Potionmaker. Not a healer, and a little peevish at being forced to play one.'"  Then, "'Lace Harding.'" I scan the crowd once more before turning to Cassandra and shaking my head.

Cullen gives a sigh. “אין מזל עם השפה ,אני לוקח את זה?” He asks grimly.

“אין. היא נראית לקבל המשמעות שלה ברחבי כשהיא צריכה ,עד כה .והיא....” Cassandra looks at me a long moment. I look back, then give a minute cant of my head. “הקסם שלה הוא ...בלתי שגרתי.”

“חריגה _איך?”_ His voice has gone wary.

Cassandra simply shakes her head. “אתה תראה בקרוב .אני אף פעם לא ראיתי מישהו להילחם כמוה, גם .יש לו שורשים כמה טכניקות ישנות ראיתי בכמה חלקים של העולם, אבל זה כשלעצמו אינו...” She shakes her head again. “תצטרך לראות את זה בעצמך. היא עשתה את זה,” she nods toward my staff, pointing a loose finger at it, “מתוך ענף עץ גדול סביב מותניה .היא קטפה אותו מהעץ כאילו היה זרד אז פשוט העבירה את ידיה על זה פעמים ,ונותרה עם זה,” she finishes flatly. “זה החזיק מעמד בצורה יעילה למדי נגד כל שד היא התמודדה.”

This time when Cullen looks at me, it is a kind of serious that leaves me feeling on edge. My own look turns less friendly. It is both a question and a censure, and says clearly that an outright warning is up next.

“מדוע היא לא באמצעות צוות של קוסם?” He asks.

“זה הוצע,” Solas says. “היא סירבה.”

“גם לקחה לה שיקוי יחיד lyrium,” Cassandra adds, “למרות הליהוק הקסם החזק ביותר שראיתי מעודי כאילו היו לטבע שני .היא משתמשת בו בקרב משולבת באופן מושלם עם הטכניקות הפיזיות שלה.”

There is a hush, and because of it and the fact that I can contribute nothing, I withdraw my attention and look up at the Breach. It pulses outward in a burst as if breaking through some membrane, and at the same moment I have to close my eyes against a stab of pain.

“טוב,” Cullen says drily. “לפחות זה אפוקליפסה פשוט כי שאינו מציג אתגרים חדשים או תעלומות .היינו מלאים על אלה ,אחרי הכל.”

Scant more words are exchanged, and we are given fresh potions - I refuse the lyrium, and when the soldier protests, seeming to think I do not understand, Cullen shuts the woman down. He seems... cranky.

We move on, Cassandra in the lead, followed by me, then Varric and Solas. Leliana has caught up, and along with Cullen, takes the rear. Behind them are innumerable soldiers and agents.

Not one mage or templar is in their ranks.

 

* * * * *

 

I stop at the head of a wide stairway, scree and rubble where there were once walls. All the remains, human and elf and dwarven, have been removed.

I feel like I have done all of this before.

Corypheus' booming voice is rolling thunder and desert sand as it blasts out from nowhere and everywhere. His words are as foreign as everyone else’s, but I know their content all the same. I am the only one who does not react with shock or surprise.

When he is done, I say his name quietly to myself, staring at where the massive projected memory will soon appear. Solas walks up beside me and gazes over the ruin, a slight crease between his brows. He's a polite distance away, but the space feels tense and false, like it shouldn't be there. And it feels as if a deep, ancient sorrow is pouring from him. Not in any special way, I don't think, just a normal sort of impression. 

I have the most strangely visceral urge to reach out and take his hand in an offer of comfort.

I only furrow my brow at his silhouette. He doesn't look back at me, so after a moment, I move on. It seems safest, somehow.

I hear whispered words from him. I think they are elvhen, and again, I am the only one who seems to hear.

Everyone moves as quietly as they can through the remains. Archers take high positions on rubble and ruined walls all around the massive, sunken room, and bladed combatants follow behind our small core group as we make the final descent. The whistle and thunk of an arrow sounds as someone takes down a lone shade.

When we reach the bottom of the crater where the pillar of green light is rooted, where it sits with the gravity of a hundred worlds, pushing upward near the massive, crystalline rift, the movie of what happened before the explosion begins to play out.

It is wrong. Whole pieces of it blur in and out where it should be clear, as though a picture through a storm. The voice of the woman I saw in the Fade, who died to give me the Mark, is so distorted that it is nearly impossible to make out. I hear something of my voice in it as her silhouette, blurred beyond recognition, enters the room. It is as if someone has tried to mix the two and done a horrible job of it.

The scene melts from view and the questions begin flying. My eyes do not leave the place where it was.

The Mark was not meant to be acquired like this. The imprint of what happened to Justinia was not meant to take place like it has. I look down at my right hand.

"'Corypheus,'" I say, dark and angry and loud enough that everyone nearby can hear. I turned to Varric, a hard sort of compassion in my face when I shake my head at him. "'He is not dead,'" I say quietly. "'You killed him, but....'"

I point at the place where his image had been. "'Corypheus,'" I repeat. "'He is not,'" I shake my head, then draw a finger across my throat and repeat, "'dead. You, Fenris, Isabella, Carver, and Hawke killed him. But... he does not stay dead. He takes hosts and....'" I make a derisive sound. "'What am I even talking about, you have no idea what I'm saying,'" I mutter. 

A debate begins, and eventually I let it fade from my attention and pick my way on silent feet to the massive Rift near the center of the crater. It is the size of a large house, and it sings, filling up the space. I look through it to the prickling jade crystal at its heart, expanding and contracting seemingly at random, as chaotic and out of order as the Rift and the Breach. As I gaze at it and at the swirling hole above I feel... it is almost a familiarity. It is wrong somehow, but all I can think is that dangerous and wounded and warped as it is, the Breach is terribly beautiful. Hm. Literally, I suppose.

I feel Solas watching me again as I take all of it in. He feels like he carries all the sorrows of an Age.

Cassandra says a single word behind me and all conversation stops. I turn and find everyone looking at me. With a sinking feeling, I realize what is going to happen next.

Solas takes a single step toward me, but I hold a palm up and shake my head. "'I know what you want, and it is not going to work. But....'" I sigh, some of the hair that has come loose from my quick braid wafting in the exhale. "'It will help. So fine, whatever.'"  It's just going to hurt like hell.

I roll my shoulders and neck, then walk back to the group and give a twitch of my hand, calling the Mark to life in a swell of Fadelight. I nod to Cassandra, who barks out an order and readies herself. The sliding of arrows on bows, drawstrings tensing, creaking leather and the scraping of metal armor plates are her reply, all rich, minute sounds that I would not have heard perhaps even a few days ago.

I raise my hand and let fly the connection between the Anchor and the Rift, and the Pride demon, bigger than two houses stacked on top of one another, is pulled through. It looses a roar that grabs me and everyone else by the bones.

If the Rift I closed when we met Solas and Varric was an electric shock, this is ozone and lightning straight to my center. But it is over soon. For now.

I feel, as my magic flares to action, that I know what bravery looks like. It is on the faces of everyone in this ruin.

 

__* * * * *_ _

 

I have kept Solas close through the fight - for more than one reason - and as the demon topples, I move in front of him and shout an order, motioning for him to brace himself. I'd prefer Cassandra, but I don't especially want to slam backwards into plate armor.

I cast armor over everyone on the ground, and just as the demon begins to vanish in purple smoke and Solas shouts at me, I am bracing my right arm with my left hand and swinging it up to the Rift. I let loose everything I have, and the world goes electric, jade green.

My last conscious memory is the noise Solas makes as I am flung backwards into him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who don't care about immersion or whatever, translation of the dialogue is in the comments - should be third down.
> 
> Here we have entered into the territory where I don't remember tiny game details, e.g. how many scouts were in the mountain pass.
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> The promised important plot points from the last two chapters:
> 
> \- MC has: crazy-good senses (everyone needs to take like ten baths), amnesia, no knowledge of the language. Knows virtually all of Thedas' past, present, and future. Called Cassandra and Leliana by name, mentioned Varric.  
> \- Also: apparently impervious to cold. The "air" feels alive, kicks at her like a new set of instincts, more or less casts magic for her. To immobilize demons at Rifts, she has to channel actively - she stops, they restart. Refuses to use a mage staff, needs no lyrium potions.  
> \- Towns, buildings, populations, all are much larger and more intricate than expected  
> \- Solas is acting weird  
> \- Cullen's super hot
> 
> That last one obviously isn't crucial to the plot. But I mean... it's Cullen.
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> 2/12/18: Leveled up. This one did end up being almost a complete rewrite, with new dialogue added. For those re-readers in the crowd (<33) the character change is intentional and temporary.  
> 5/6/18: Gave blades to the staff she makes, changed Solas' reaction to her flattery of Cullen, tweaks  
> 6/3/18: Most or all of the interactions between the MC & Solas have been altered or changed.  
> 6/11/18: Substantial change in interaction of a spoiler-related nature (because first-time readers).  
> 10/3/18: English changed from italic to triple(ish) quotes  
> 10/10/18: Fixed the meeting spot with The Boys from a crumbling building to proper ruins (replaying the game, so many details to correct)


	5. Let The Sins Be ours

_I’m running through woods. They are wet and chill and alive with green on every surface. The smell of peat and rain and rich soil are bludgeoning. It is his home, and I love it. I am free here. I did not know the word before him._

_I am running faster than should be possible even as I vault over fallen logs and duck under brush and weave between fern- and vine- and moss-covered trunks. I do not have to hold back here._

_I scatter a kaleidoscope of butterflies and the glint of light off their gem-and-metal wings casts bright color over every surface._

_“You’re getting slow, old man!” I call around a laugh and a huge grin. My voice echoes through the wood as if I'm in a chanting hall._

_I_ _am rewarded with a surge of annoyance from behind me and my chaperone_ at last _becomes my pursuer - he picks up speed to run me down. He is always so short with me, but if annoying him is the only way to get any proper attention, I have less than no problem poking at him with any stick that I can get my hands on._

_It is a joy to have his attention._

_I am jubilant. I can feel my heartbeat in my skin, the brush of damp leaves and fronds against my legs and dew collecting on my skin, the soft sponge and shift under my feet, the caress of brush and broken sticks. My smile is manic._

_I hear him catch up to me - he is on four legs, after all - and the crunch of soft loam under enormous paws, followed by a silence when he propels himself into the air to pounce._

_I lean back at an angle that would topple anyone else, but I am master of my body here, all my rote training, my every jagged edge smoothed by repetition, turned to gifts and joys. I know my feet. I know my every muscle and bone and tendon, the snap of every reflex. I don't hate him - another him - for doing this to me, not here and now._

_I push back as I see the black fur of his massive underside fly overhead and can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of me. He is The Hunter, and any miss is a victory worth gloating over. Only Andruil is better, and neither of us want me anywhere near her, though his reasons are different from mine. Father doesn’t want me near her, either. Not yet._

_He lands and spins around far faster than anything even half his size should be able to. I don’t know what has done it, whether my persistence or my incessant laughter and delight, but he is_ finally _joining in the game. We circle one another, his storm-blue eyes fixed on me, a low rumbling growl in his chest, and I am crouched and ready. The forest has gone still and quiet. Spirits have begun to gather among the trees. Not many but the few who are almost always wandering around. Pockets of the Fade are ever-present here. It’s one of the reasons he made this his home._

_Here is where magic would flash, were I anyone else - augments to strength, armor, speed. It’s only fun if it’s a fair fight, after all._

_I grin, predatory and all teeth._

_He launches and I dart to the side. But he anticipated it and is already pushing off and hurling at me again. He hits low, knocking me onto my stomach, and tries to put his teeth around my throat - which amounts to my whole head, given his size - to claim victory, but I plant an elbow hard into the tendon of the leg pinning my other arm. I spin onto my back before he can recover and too fast to see, jab upward into the joints of each armpit, hitting with force enough to knock a tree out of the ground those tender spots I’d wager no one else knows about, and many would pay fortunes to learn of._

_He yelps. If he were elvhen and prone to blushing, there might be an angry flush coloring his cheeks. His weaknesses are so few, and so hidden, and he loathes that I know any of them. He loathes almost everything about me. And now,_ now _he is serious. Now he will not hold back, not even the smallest bit, not even to turn this into a lesson. Now, he only wants to put me in my place._

 _I. Am. Exultant._ _I love him like this, raw and split open, and his temper is so hot it is the only way I can make him come out. It is the only time I truly see him, and I think if I can do this to him enough times, he will let me in. He must. He will see me, he will let me be a friend. I know father wants it, but I don’t care that father wants it, because_ I _want it. This, this alone is mine._

_I want his loyalty. I want someone who doesn’t want what I am, but who I am. And Pride, Pride does not care what I am. Not like the others. He hates it, of course, but at least he has stopped to look through his disgust. He was the first._

_I briefly consider letting him win, but he would know - he is too clever not to know - and such weakness is a sin to him, one of few he considers low enough for punishment and cruelty. The weak have no place with the Dread Wolf. And I am not weak._

_He snaps at me but his teeth find air - I am already up and gone. It will take him only an instant to locate me, so I am fast as I can be as I gather the distance I need, then push off a tree, forcing a pained crack from it as it topples. I crash into his ribs like a boulder. It is just enough to get him to stagger as his head whips around and again his teeth snap closed on nothing, this time with a snarl._

_His eyes have gone red, and small tendrils of ink-dark smoke have begun to curl from him here and there. I feel the rush I know so rarely now. I feel victory, my fingers half closed around it._

_I grab fistfulls of his hair and use them to swing myself to his other side. He takes a single step to balance himself, a slight shift of weight, and I take advantage. I use it to knock his legs out from under him - first the strong back hock, then all he has left, the front leg, using his limbs to propel myself from one end of him to the other._

_He topples, and I am too fast for him to catch. I feel a pride beyond words as my muscles, sculpted and nimble and cultivated, move through motions they memorized hundreds of thousands of repetitions ago. I have been carved into a masterwork, and playing with this man is the only time I have ever truly enjoyed it._

_He is on his side and I wrap my hand around one of his forelegs - it cannot circle halfway around, but I am strong enough to make up for it - and pull with his tumble to put him on his back as I jump atop his ribcage and cling to him with my thighs. Before the motion is done, I have a summoned blade in my hand and graceful as soft, fluid water, I use my momentum to swing it into place and press it to his throat. It is dramatically serrated to ensure that it will penetrate his thick fur - armor unto itself - and that he will feel it against his skin._

_He is furious._

_I am smiling wide, all teeth._

_We are both of us breathing hard, which speaks to how into the game we have become. We have run together for a full day without becoming winded._

_I hold him there until I see the life, the sense start to return to his eyes. Until first the glow, then the red color disappears and the Fade magic of his coat melts away to fur, and until there is only that stormcloud blue that I could study for a decade without pause._

_Finally, he breaks the tension by laughing. It is booming and it is sincere and the part of me that was braced for his anger loosens and uncoils in my chest. A relief I hadn’t known I’d needed floods me and my smile turns from vicious to genuine. I dismiss the blade and relax, sitting back on his ribcage and resting my hands in his coarse fur, thicker than two pillows atop one another, as I watch him and join his laugh._

_Almost too fast for even me to follow, he has me on my back on the ground, one massive paw pinning me by the chest. He is not laughing, but I can feel the mirth, the_ approval _coming from him. He holds nothing back, and I laugh again. As much as I can - he is nearly crushing my lungs. He does not treat me delicately, as a thing that may break. He does not treat me with syrup, as a thing he wishes to use. And he does not treat me with fear, as a thing that may snap and kill._

_When I am with him, I think I could understand what it means to have a pack, even if that is only one person. I have family, yes, but it is no family. I have a people, but I am not one of them. Even most of the Spirits don’t know what to make of me. The Dread Wolf, Pride, does not care._

_I wonder if this is what it feels like to have real family. I wonder if this is what it feels like to love. It is one thing they have not been able to teach me._

_[Well done, Little One,] he says, and I could soar into the clouds from the joy of it._

_“I hate it when you call me that,” I say with a smile. “When are you going to choose a name?”_

_It is a brash question, overconfident and foolish, and I pay for it immediately:_ _His good humor dissipates and he growls. Without a word, he turns and stalks away, leaving me alone._

_‘Why do you not give me a name?’ I have asked him._

_‘Because I do not own you.’_

_‘Of course you do.’_

_In the beginning he tried to explain it to me._

_In the beginning, I pretended to listen._

 

 

_I see a girl wake up below a tear in the sky._

_She is uncertain, but good. She sees puzzles, dangers, possibilities. She is stoic and brave._

_I see the same girl wake up under the same tear._

_She is impatient and urgent. Every person around her is a child, slow and feeble, unintelligent, unenlightened. They are all in the way. But there is one person... oh._ Oh. _She_ missed _him. Yet she must be careful. Wary of him. Watchful._

_I see it again._

_The girl sees friends. She sees pieces to be moved and manipulated into position. She sees souls and spirits. She sees pawns that mean nothing._

_There are so many voices, talking all at once, too many people...._

 

 

_Mythal-Flemeth speaks, somber. “Wild magic is always unpredictable.”_

_Mythal-not-Flemeth echoes the words. Her voice is honey over a blade._

_There is a man’s voice, displeased and only just courteous. It sounds like a greeting. “Daern’thal.” I feel a sick roil at the word, but I don't know why._

_There is the noise of war, distant at first, and then so close I know I am in the battle. I call out orders. I cut our people down, I cut spirits down when I must, and I feel every death like a wound. The pain is number now, but I still feel it. I hope it is what will keep me in tact, even as I feel it is robbing me of something I don’t wish to lose. I cannot remember what it is like without the numbness anymore. Part of me loves it. It is the part I can never free myself from._

_“YOU WOULD BETRAY US, DREAD WOLF?” A voice practically screams, livid, mad and frantic. I know the cutting metal of terror when I hear it. " **US?"**_

_The voice of the man who greeted someone returns, with disdain this time. I feels like I should know it. “I have no wish to participate in your experiments, and you know I abhor receiving one of the People as a gift. They are not things to give.”_

_“_ _But they are toys to play with, no?” A second voice asks, grin obvious in its voice, and I feel a ripple in myself._

 _“_ _Not like this,” the first voice replies. “I will enjoy them as I like, but only when they are free to choose. Where is the fun, otherwise?” I can feel him grin, a sharp thing, dangerous._ _"You and your people know that. It is what you are. It is the reason you went to war. It is the reason I have never sided against you.”_

 _The second voice speaks again, a quiet thing but too barbed to be silk. “And what is your reason for not siding against_ them? _They are monsters and you know it.”_

_There are whispered words behind hands and around corners. They do not realize how well I can hear, better even than them. I was made to be better._

_“_ _Abomination.”_

_“Daughter of monsters.”_

_“Why does he tolerate her?”_

_“Blight.”_

 

 

_I see furious eyes, like a halla so panicked it cannot be spoken to. I hate those eyes, I fear them, I resent them. I love them because I must. They have my loyalty because they did not give me the ability to choose otherwise._

_He would sacrifice me in a moment, and if he did I would go gladly. But he will not sacrifice me; I am the only one left he can trust with whatever is left of who he is, and with who he was. I think part of him needs something to remind him of that, and of why he really started this. Still, I know he would sacrifice me if it was the only way. Nothing comes before the People. Nothing and no one._

_Fields of blood, temples of it, slicking the stairs and choking the soil, darkening a waterfall, coating my limbs. I am as ferocious as any beast._

_I kill for what we believe in, I murder for it, I slaughter for it. He asks of me, and I give. We all do. We would do anything for him. He is the only god of the People now. The others are false, just as I was taught and shown. The others are monsters. I tolerated Mythal because he respected her._

_We will free them all, no matter how many backs we must shatter to do so. Let the cost be on our heads. Let the sins be ours so no one else ever knows what it is to stand under heel. No one believed we would get this far. They were fools. They were arrogant. We will not make their mistakes._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 4/23/18: Tenses corrected, style tweaks  
> 6/14/18: Added the bit about perspectives


	6. Universal Language

“Right,” Harritt says to the Commander, the young woman’s staff in his hands. “I’ve had a chance to look over it, and to frank, I’ve never seen its like. Been fortunate enough to come across some of that stuff the dalish make from that wood of theirs, and it’s a little like that. But only a little.” He shakes his head and glances at one of the bladed ends. “It’s stronger than steel, but it has give. I couldn’t begin to guess how it’s so light, and the blades are sharp enough to leave a divot on one of my anvils. Fell against one like a damn feather and you can see the scratch from here.” He twists around and points over his shoulder. “One of the boys cut himself running a finger along the edge, didn’t even realize until he was bleeding everywhere. Damn near lost the thing, to be honest.  
  
"I might be able to find out more, but much as I hate to admit it... I doubt it. And it’d involve sticking it in forges and trying to break it to get a look at the structure inside.”

Cullen makes a dubious noise. There goes the hope that it could be duplicated. “Best leave it, then.” He holds a hand out. “I’ll see that it’s returned to her.”

Staff in hand, Cullen’s boots crunch over earth and stone, then slosh through mud and snow as he heads toward the house she’s been sequestered in while they all sit by uselessly and pray she lives.

The simple fact is that with what he’s heard, and seen for himself, she could easily have turned on them, especially with how she was likely treated. But she didn’t. Why? She let guards order her and Cassandra interrogate her, kept herself shackled, followed orders, fought on the side of the Inquisition, risked her life to keep pushing forward, and then again to assault the Breach. He's certain she knew it wouldn't work, that that is what she was trying to tell them on the ground. But she'd still tried.

She had no responsibility to see the scouts in the pass rescued, or to protect their people on the ground under the Breach when she moved to close it. She was obviously familiar with the foreign magic in her hand, the one the apostate Solas warns is likely the only way to close these Rifts. And she _knows_ all of them. It isn’t just the personal details, either. When she’d looked at him, it had been as if she had done it a hundred times before.

No one has heard anything like her language, seen anything like her magic. Her skill in combat is unprecedented. He’s loathe to admit it, but perhaps they should consider Leliana’s theory, impossible as it seems. If ever there was a time for the Maker to step in once again….

He frowns and walks on.

 

* * * * *

 

I shoot upright, gasping, tears streaming down my face. I’m cold with sweat and it feels like my heart has been split open, like thick fingers are prying jagged nails into the fissure.

In an instant, I’m aware of my surroundings. I’m under heavy blankets in a simple bed in a small room-- And that’s all I can tell, because I start gagging. I put my arm over my mouth and nose and realize this is what woke me - it smells like I’m in the middle of a cesspit. There’s excrement, and bodies badly in need of showers. Metal, leather and animals, food and snow and things I don’t have names for. Sharp and tangy, sickly sweet, musk and acid and spice, and then everything is bleeding into everything else until all I can make out is the headache I’m already starting to get from it.

I cut the air off from my nose and breathe only through my mouth. It makes it worse. But there’s no reason I can see that I should--

Oh.

My senses. I remember everything being overclocked. But still, nothing, _nothing_ had smelled this bad, and I’d been in the middle of death and battle.

I close my eyes and concentrate on a little pocket of calm in me, like a pure, steady center, and eventually my nose-- or, well, my sense of smell, starts to adapt and shut everything out.

When I feel like I’m not going to vomit anymore, I realize that god in heaven, I have to _pee._ I find what I fervently hope is the chamber pot, literally tear away my underpants, and stifle a groan of relief as I crouch over it. After a moment, I’m able to get a look around.

The room I’m in is simple and small, its walls, floor, and ceiling all bare, sealed planks of wood. There’s a single paned window with thick, warped glass, plain furniture, and a generous, crackling fire in a small hearth.

Every horizontal surface is crowded with little things - even some of the ceiling beams. There’s an oddly generous number of lit candles. A flower. A few dirty coins, a piece of fruit, a child’s doll. There’s an old ring, a small book, pebbles. It’s like I’m in the room of a giant magpie.

Outside the plain door opposite the foot of the bed is a single, much larger room. There’s a second small room next to mine, full of crates and sacks. The front room holds them, too, but there are also more of the trinkets. I don’t know how I know that, but I do. I wonder idly why they wouldn’t have put me in a room in the Chantry.

There had been a cloth draped over the top of the brass pot I’m squatting over, so when I’m done with my business, I replace the fabric, hoping that’s right. I nudge the thing out of the way with a foot, half under the bed and near a small dresser. The garment I’d ripped away that constituted underwear is horrible and uncomfortable - an hourglass of fabric with a thong that tied at the hip. I kick them over by the chamber pot, my mouth curled a little in distaste. Aside from those, all I have on is some fabric wrapped around my chest and a long tunic, this one of much more soft, sturdy material than the last. And it isn’t missing its back, so that’s a nice bonus.

There’s no nervous elven woman bursting into the room. But there is what looks like a wardrobe in the far corer. As I move to it, I feel… different. It’s something I can’t put words to, something about the _way_ I move. It reminds me of how I’d felt so clear-headed in the dungeon. I feel sure and loose, like every movement is the long-practiced step of a dance. I feel sure.

I stop, a cold sort of dawn piercing me. My body had looked “odd” in the temple. I understand not realizing then. Maybe I could even excuse not realizing it when my hands had struck me the same way. But if nothing else, the senses should have been a dead give away. There was nothing familiar about those. Or the magic, or the ability to fight like some kind of god of war.

Slowly, cautiously, I look down and take myself in. What I can see of my skin, which isn’t much, is latticed with scars, most of them so slight I wager no one else will be able to see them unless they’re close and the light hits just so. Some are absolutely gnarly and will be visible from a distance. I don’t know what it is, because I don’t remember anything before now other than a vague sense that I had existed somewhere, but just like my mouth wasn’t used to the language I spoke and I had been surprised by what I could do, I know that what I’m looking at right now isn’t familiar. The skin is softer, more even and smooth. Perfect, I’d say, under the scars. There’s less hair, and what’s there is more fine. I’m slight and muscled, but shapely. The feet are heavily calloused, the hands elegant and surprisingly strong, and every movement, from a step to lifting my hand to eye level, speaks of practiced grace. What I can feel of my face seems more slight than I… am used to? I suppose that must be it. Sharp cheekbones, a defined jaw and neck, large eyes and a fine nose, full lips. My hair is mid-light, and like silk and satin, mostly straight, and much longer than I expect.

Loose pieces start to snap together. I remember dreaming of three different people all waking below the Breach. I remember that “voice” I kept feeling, the aggressive one. It seems not just quiet now, but absent as if it had never been there, and still so much blood drains from my face that the skin starts to prick.

One more hit comes, because I remember how Solas hadn’t been cold in the snow. I remember how he’d been barefoot, and how I’d gotten the sense that he perceived more than the others had. All like me.

I take a breath and raise my hand to the side of my head. I find ears that are too long. If I’m being honest, I knew I would. I don’t even move my fingers far along them. I don’t need to. And just that much has a chill pricking its way over my skin from scalp to toes

I take steps backwards, feet sure, and sit on the soft bed. I wonder idly what’s inside. Not feathers - it would be more prickly if it was feathers. I look down and toy with my fingers, rubbing the tips together absently. I feel the grooves of my fingerprints. I have hair on the backs of my hands and fingers, my arms, and what I can see of my legs, but it’s that down-fine, soft, invisible sort. Curious, I lift the hem of my shirt, and my eyebrows raise in mild interest. No pubic hair. I feel under an armpit. Nothing there, either.

Still no elven woman comes into the room.

I feel a little stiff, but I don’t hurt anywhere. I realize it’s the first real memory I have of not being in pain.

There’s a bowl of water and a soft-looking cloth on a small table next to the door. I rise and go to it. The water is a little cloudy, but I make an absent gesture - inside, without moving - like I would brush away a strand of hair in my face, I feel something move, and abruptly the water is clear and gently steaming. It smells faintly of minerals.

It’s a little… surreal. Because it happened, and because there’s something in me not reacting to it at all, the way we don’t react to a thing that’s old hat. I reach out and a fingertip just barely meets the skin of the water. Something in me hums.

I wet the cloth and wash the drying sweat from what I can reach without undressing. I use an end of it to clean my teeth, then wash my underarms and groin. Another little twitch on the inside and the water is gone, the cloth clean and dry, and with the funniest sort of sense, almost of unreality, I fold it neatly and lay it carefully in the bottom of the basin. My hand lingers on it for a moment.

I want to hide. To stay in here. I know I can’t. I know that, and I know I don’t like avoiding things that I’m afraid of. I also know that if I do avoid it, it’ll only be worse later. I look out the window for a moment and see nothing but the white of snow and the blur of another building.

I make my way to the tall bureau.

 

* * * * *

 

It isn’t beige, it isn’t plain, and though it’s every bit as utilitarian as I expect, they managed to inject the uniform with some grace. The fit and cut match my… memory? But the uniform as a whole is deep crimson with rich, charcoal gray paneling down the sides. It’s tastefully and subtly embroidered... in palest gold. I can’t imagine how they’d even do that in such a primitive place, and they’ve clearly sacrificed a frightening portion of their budget for the sake of the presentation this outfit will afford.

The Inquisition’s symbol, the Chantry sunburst with the eye in its center and the sword running vertically through that, is embroidered over the heart. The whole garment is made of a fabric that’s thick and clearly sturdy, but soft as a puppy’s ears.

There’s a second uniform, thinner and more fine, and four sets of slim tunics and trousers that I assume are meant to be worn underneath.

I choose the heavy one - a better fit to the gravity of my situation, I think - and it’s with a somber sort of presence that I dress, slowly, as if it’s a ritual. In a way, it is; I’m not just putting on clothing. It is every bit the symbol to me that they mean it to be for everyone else, just in a very different way. I’m walking into this voluntarily.

Well, I’m making the choice not to punch a hole in the wall and run. This isn’t my problem. It isn’t my world. But for whatever reason, here I am. So for now, here I’ll be, all of me. Besides, I’m not a psychopath; where the hell am I going to go with the only hope anyone has?

Next to the wardrobe are boots that look just as fine as the suit. I consider them for a moment. I obviously don’t need them, no, but it seems like I should do _something_ to try to blend in. To be a little less alien and strange. To put on the armor we wear that can’t be seen. So boots it is.

I loathe them immediately. They’re expensive, well-made little foot prisons. I can’t stop wiggling my toes looking for room that isn’t there, like they’re half a size too small, even though they fit me as perfectly as everything else - come to it, how is that? Did someone take my measurements while I was passed out? For now, I can suck it up. It’s sort of a good way to encapsulate the whole situation and reduce it down to uncomfortable feet. That, at least, is a clear, simple problem with an easy answer.

With a measured breath, I run my hands down the front of the tunic, then move to the larger room outside this one, leaving the door ajar behind me. From there it’s the front door, and when I slowly - but not so slowly as to draw too much attention - crack it open, early morning light, cool and watercolor-pink, pours in, along with the crisp smell of cold and snow. Those are the scents I focus on, anyway. Soft light glints off the embroidery over my heart.

I give myself a moment, then open the door and step out. A long lane, something like a boulevard of packed earth sprinkled generously with small rocks to combat the mud, lays out before it. Blessedly, it’s deserted. Not for long, I know - I can hear everyone nearby - but it’s a nice gift for now.

Just outside my building, all along its front walls, are more curios and candles, just like in the house. I realize what they are now, because I’ve seen things like this - there’s a little jolt at that realization - usually laid out to honor the recently passed. They’re offerings. Gifts. Symbols of hope and homage and unity.

So far, what little I’ve seen of Thedas has been more expansive than I expected. I don’t think this is like that. I think this is the fact that I said too many things I had no right to know. That I moved like a big cat, that I did the impossible one too many times, that I’m alien, and all that on top of the fact that, at least in theory, I dropped out of a huge Rift backed by the glowing silhouette of a woman.

Perhaps the quality of the uniform isn’t what it “should” have been, either.

Well.

...Well.

My time runs out to the sound of two sets of feet, and around the corner several buildings down the street come two women in simple peasant dress, carrying massive baskets filled with fresh bread. The first one who sees me drops her burden. An instant later, her companion follows her gaze and freezes. Both women stare at me, stock still. "Andraste," one of them breathes, and she falls to her knees, bowing her head and yanking the other woman down with her.

Someone pokes a head out behind them, curious. His eyes go round, and he bolts back out of sight. From there, things escalate quickly; inside of sixty seconds, forty-two people and counting - exactly forty-two, which I know the same way I knew what was outside of my bedroom door - are crowded into the street in front of me and along the much smaller one that runs parallel to my house. There is no quiet. They are whispering, exclaiming, eyes are welling with tears and disbelief and pained hope, knees are thudding and easing down to the mud, hands clasped. Fists thump into place over hearts, heads drop, whispers and murmurs ripple through the groups. Some of them are doubtful, but they are in the minority.

I can’t stop the worried, concerned look from shaping my eyes.

And then my they fall on an elf.

He’s roughly fifty feet away, but I can see him as if it’s fifty inches, and I can’t stop staring. Even when he averts his eyes, darts a glance back, then looks anywhere but at me, his cheeks coloring, I can’t stop. When people start staring at _him_ I can’t stop.

He’s dressed as simply as everyone else, his face free of vallaslin and his build normal, his eyes a breathtaking ochre, but though I can’t put my finger on it at first, there’s something unnervingly, almost sickeningly wrong with him. He looks as healthy as anyone else, but I would swear it’s as if the color is leached out of him, like his skin is grayed and there’s something essential and vital missing from him. From his spirit. His soul. He looks the way he should look, and he also looks utterly, completely wrong. Something in me, that part that exists before thought, wants to cry, wants to turn and be sick on the street, wants to keep him far away as if I’ll catch whatever he has.

Because of it, I don’t notice right away when the yelling starts. But it grows closer, outraged. It shoves people out of the way before it, and I know the voice immediately.

Roderick. The quilled pufferfish.

I’m still as he charges forward, bushy eyebrows drawn in a scowl and his eyes full of righteous thunder. He’s flanked by two templars, one of who doesn’t want to be there and feels put-upon, the other young, nervous, and… idyllic, is what I think I get the impression of. I pick this out despite the fact that their faces and bodies are hidden behind plate armor.

As he gets close, Roderick extends a hand to grab my arm. Everything around me grinds to a standstill and comes into sharp detail.

Almost like I’d heard that “voice,” almost like that force of magic and spirit in the air had moved with me, at the speed of instinct the world dilates.

I know the gender, health, and relative ages of all 63 people present, the 14 who will be here within the next ten seconds, and the ones who will arrive after. I know who is likely to step forward and how skilled they’d prove in a fight. I “see” the off-duty soldiers, the aggressors and pacifists, the diplomats and the fearful, the faithful and the wary.

I see the weave of Roderick’s robe and snapped strands in it that are invisible to the naked eye, the way it’s a patchwork of colors, not just crimson and cream. I see the shape of the grains of dirt under his fingernails, the oils seeping from his pores, the shape of the veins in his bulged eyes. His anger - and the fear he isn’t aware of - clog the air.

Mentally, I see him get close.

_His fingers are an inch away. I pivot, hug his form in a spin to get behind him. In one move I snap a high kick to the elder templar and give a precise jab with my foreknuckles to the back of Roderick’s neck. His legs give out and he begins to drop._

_I pivot again and take the sword from the younger templar - he will refuse to lift a finger against me - then turn the motion forward into a spin and sweep between him and the older one. I strike the backs of the elder man's knees, and once he is on them his own hesitance to move against me will take control, making him hesitate and allowing me more than enough time to swing my blade - a dull thing, more a saw than a sword - into the back of Roderick's neck, severing it easily. This will make the older Templar react, but before he can stand, the tip of the sword will be at his throat. He will get one chance._

All of this comes before Roderick’s forefoot as rolled forward onto its ball.

When he barrels into me, expecting resistance that isn’t there, it should topple me, but it’s like he has the side and strength of a child. A weak child. His hand clamps down with what I assume is supposed to be bruising force, and all I can do is stare down at it as he starts barking orders. I assume “Arrest her!” is the gist.

It’s the same greeting I would have gotten if I’d come upon him in the war room, arguing with Cassandra. Something in the air thumps, like the heartbeat of another life, here and not.

An off-duty guard runs in the direction of the Chantry - I know this without looking up from Roderic’s hand. Two of the guard’s companions approach carefully. The elder, a man with a soothing tone and gray peppered through his hair, attempts to placate Roderick while everyone else watches on. The clerk is oblivious to the hostility, or at least disapproval, quickly building in the crowd all around him. None of it is directed at me.

The soldier’s companion, a woman with soft brown hair and patchy, wind-chapped skin, watches us silently, her eyes moving from Roderick to me to the templars. Her hand stays near a dagger at her side, not so close as to be obvious, but she’s tensed to draw at a moment’s notice.

So I have the people on my side, then.

The soldier trying to soothe Roderick says the word “Pentagast,” and my eyes slip closed at his tactical error. Like a spark to dry tinder, the name sets the blood rushing to Roderick’s face and he bellows at the other man, gesticulating with the hand that’s still clamped around my upper arm.

I pinch the bridge of my nose with my free hand and give a quiet little beleaguered sigh.

By some miracle - or not, given how Roderic’s voice must be carrying - Varric pushes his way through the crowd from my left and manages to stall the man until Cassandra’s glorious, commanding voice rings out. She follows it an instant later, flanked by Cullen and Leliana. I go tight, because there are so many ways this could go wrong.

They stop dead in their tracks, looks of shock and disbelief on their faces. Cassandra recovers first and gives what is obviously an order or demand. "אתהתשחרר אותה בזה הרגע! אין לך זכות לקחת אותה!”

Roderick meets it, boiling over with righteous anger and holy right. "יש לי זכות מלאה! הכופר הזה הרג האלוהי ! היא חייבת לעמוד לדין על פשעי לה!"

"ראיתי אותה לנסות,” Cassandra replies in a hard voice. “ לא, היא לא, _שמור_ האלוהי Justinia במו עיני. היא סיכנה את חייה כדי לעשות את זה. ועכשיו היא הפסיקה את ההפרה מלגדול והצילה חיים רבים .תוכל לקחת אותה לשום מקום ,רודריק, Roderick.”

He barks back, "אתה לא יכול להאמין לשטויות כ!"

'מה שאנו _מאמין_ האישה,” Cullen says, his voice brooking no argument, and I think the man who inspires armies to follow him now. “קנצלר ,הוא כי אתה פועל ללא סמכות ,והם לשחררה מייד ,הזו גיבור ,והוא עשה יותר עבור Thedas בימים האחרונים ממה שאתה צפוי לעשות את שארית חייך העלובים שלך."

Abruptly, my brows pinch together and my head snaps up in the direction of the end of the long road in front of me. Solas is there. I can’t see him, but I _feel_ it.

Roderick responds as if utterly above the warning on Cullen’s face. "אין סמכות !אני עכשיו חבר דירוג של Chantry! ומה שלומך אבל פחדן אשר נטש את משמרתו!"

Cullen bites back anger with such visible force of will that I am honestly impressed. And all the more concerned.

Cassandra tries again. "ואתה פקיד מהולל !אתה לא יכול לכבד סמכות של קאלן ,אבל אתה _שלי_ כבוד ,ואת רצונם של האלוהי Justinia, ואתה תשחרר אותה בזה הרגע! אני לא אשאל שוב."

Roderick opens his mouth and sucked in a breath to speak.

"'Stop,'" I say quietly, but it’s the sort of quiet that banks tempers and demands attention. Something intangible flares out of me with the word, and everyone present goes still and turns to look at me. It’s as if they’d forgotten I’m here.

I glance down at Roderick’s hand on my arm, then up at him. When he makes no move to release me, something black and almost inhuman twitches behind my eyes, and he lets me go as if I’ve turned scalding. I give my shoulder a little roll to work loose the feel of him.

When all I do for an instant too long is look at him, considering, he opens his mouth to bleat something or another but I cut him off, my voice sparking. "'No.'" The hold of my gaze is enough to keep him quiet for a moment more, and everyone else is either too curious, too tense, or too aware of whatever it was I exuded to shut him up to break the spell.

There are a lot of things I could say to Roderick. Things I want to say, even. Questions I could ask, points I could try and fail to make, apologies I could give. But I can’t do any of that, because I can’t talk to him. I’m also not interested in listening to everyone work toward a resolution - him backing the hell down - when I know I can get us there much faster.

I hate wasting time.

So I hold a finger up, asking Roderick’s patience. I walk the few short steps to stand in front of the Commander and greet him by name. Then I hold my hand out and glance pointedly down at his sword. He takes my measure for a moment, then glances at Cassandra. She turns to me and says something in a reassuring voice. I give a tight little sigh, not looking away from Cullen, and raise my brows in obvious request. He turns his head a little to the side and opens his lips, a denial ready on them.

Faster than he can track, my eyes narrow fractionally and my hand snaps out, takes the hilt of his weapon, and draws it. I turn back, walking calmly toward Roderick before the Commander can even consciously register what I’ve just done.

Roderick nearly trips over his feet trying to back away from me. The elder of the two templars has to hold a hand out to keep him from falling, in fact, but though he’s wary and attentive, he’s not looking at me with aggression. He’s seasoned. He knows well enough to see the lack of threat in my posture.

I stop, gently raise both hands in a calming gesture, and slowly, telegraphing my movement and keeping my eyes on Roderick’s, turn the sword around, balancing the blade on my hands, and offer it to him.

Cullen tries to shove forward - he’s the first to figure out what I have in mind, I think, or just overcautious of the danger - but Cassandra plants her arm over his chest, her eyes riveted to me.

Roderick is trying to figure out what kind of trick this is. I just give a respectful, seemingly differential nod of my head, and hold the blade out a little further.

What must be half the town is now watching us from some corner or street or window or doorway. The only sound is the sough of wind over snow and rooftops and the distant work of a blacksmith. Roderick glances around covertly, aware of his audience, and reaches out. He slowly - or warily, I can’t be sure which - takes the sword from my hands.

In apparent kind reassurance I smile at him. Then I turn my side to him, slip down to my knees, bow over, and pull my hair cleanly from my neck, making the invitation clear and unmistakable.

He won’t understand that I’m telling him to put up or shut up. He won’t understand that I know, beyond any doubt, that there is no world in which he’ll swing. And none of that matters, because it’s still going to give me exactly what I’m after.

Cassandra raises her voice in warning. I cut her off sharply. She doesn’t have to understand the words for my tone to be utterly transparent. She goes quiet, and again, the only obvious sounds are the air and the rhythmic clank of a hammer on softened metal - until it cuts off sharply. Word has reached the smithy, I assume.

I count in my head. When I reach thirty, I look up at Roderick as if I’m confused by his lack of action. Slowly, I push up to stand with fluid grace. My eyes on him are earnest and unaccusatory. I’m annoyed as hell, yes, but he doesn’t need to know that. It wouldn’t serve anything. So I just look at him with apparent understanding and hold my hand out respectfully for the sword. At first he just shakes his head, his brows drawn together, and takes a single step back. Then he barks something ominous, though most of the fire has left him, and abruptly shoves the sword at the younger templar and stalks off toward the town’s gates.

I let my eyes narrow a little and my lips purse at his back before I step forward and, a completely different look on my face than had been there a moment ago, hold my hand out matter-of-factly to the templar. He utters a single syllable as if lost, glances at his senior, who nods at me like “What are you waiting for, idiot?” and holds the lion-headed pommel out. I return to Cullen, deftly buffing my fingerprints off the metal using my sleeve, and return it to him, a bright smile on my lips.

"'Shall we?'" I say brightly, extending a hand in the direction of the Chantry. Cullen, Cassandra, and Leliana are gaping at me, each in their own way, to their own degree. Without waiting for an answer, I head off, uttering friendly and nonsensical “good mornings” to people as I pass.

"'Solas!'" I call. "'You come, too!'" He won’t have understood it, of course, but just shouting his name should do the trick, or at least get him close enough to make myself clear.

 

* * * * *

 

For some entirely mysterious reason, I didn’t get much of a look at the Chantry last time I was inside. So hopefully I can’t be blamed for the way I stop in the entry and gape upward.

The ceilings are higher than three houses stacked atop one another. Sun pours in from every direction, and colored light filters onto pews through mosaic panes of tinted glass. Rich banners trimmed in gold hang from gracefully arched rafters, and the walkways are carpeted in thick fabric. What it takes to maintain it and keep it looking as good as it does in a place like this is beyond me.

There’s a breathy chuckle from up ahead. I don’t know who its source is; everyone has passed me and is waiting several steps away. Cullen has the shadow of an almost begrudging half-smile on his face, Cassandra’s look is probing, and Leliana’s expression is polite, but there’s something in her eyes, maybe, because I can almost see a piece of the woman she was ten years ago.

I make it to Solas, and the little grin on my lips drops like a boulder, because the moment our eyes meet, _rage,_ white-hot and unlike anything I could have fathomed crashes through me, followed immediately by a hatred so violent, so primal, that I have to squeeze my eyes shut and dig my hard into my palms. I want to hurt him. I want to _kill_ him.

I take an involuntary step back. Someone asks if I’m alright, I assume, and I just shake my head tightly and say, "'Wait.'" I want to turn away, to make a little space for myself to come back, but the thought of exposing my back to Solas is repulsive, anathema.

The feelings wash through me like mercury, but so cold that it sears everywhere it touches. But it does pass through, and little by little, settles like the spray of a towering wave against a cliffside, and I am left parched, dried out and almost starchless.

I brace myself and open my eyes. I look at him again. There’s a little crease between his brows, drawing the mark there into sharp relief. The hatred is still in me, but it’s simmering, not exploding. It’s hissing and spitting in the background.

I remember how I felt about him before I halted the Breach, but the visceral part of it, the feelings themselves, are being washed away as if by an epiphany. His frightening intelligence is suddenly menacing. He isn’t confident and wise, he’s arrogant. Instead of solitary, he’s conniving; malicious rather than reserved.

He wants Corypheus gone and the Breach closed. I know that in my bones, just like I know that we can trust him to watch out for us in battle. But Solas is Dangerous, and placing any real trust in him would be a catastrophic mistake.

Somehow I have, or at least had, more than one person, personality, swimming around in me. If that isn’t true, then it means I’m mentally unstable and I don’t _feel_ mentally unstable. I feel present, aware, objective. If it is true, then it likely has something to do with the fact that I don’t remember anything of myself - who am I? - and with the creature that seared the Anchor into my palm.

I look down at it and flex my hand, the skin between my eyes pinched.

I’m alone. How am I supposed to figure any of this out alone?

I give myself another moment to close my eyes again and tuck away the bits of panic trying to coalesce. With a teacher, I should be able to learn the language in a matter of weeks. If something life-or-death comes up before then… well, I’ll figure out a way to tell them. Charades has worked well enough so far.

I take a calming breath, put myself into the soles of my feet and feel roots stretching deep into the earth, grounding and balancing me.

Something builds in the air and when I look in its direction, in Solas’ direction, it’s replaced by the electric tang of shock as his eyes widen. I snap mine away and then… there’s nothing. It’s like a downpour has abruptly and suddenly stopped. The others felt nothing of it, I can tell. A chill skitters over me.

I push past them and head toward the back of the Chantry.

Which isn’t where we’re going, apparently, because as I near it, Cassandra jogs forward and puts a hand on my elbow to stop me. I frown down at it in confusion, and then at her. She nods toward the left wall, to a plain little door tucked away between the back wall and the plinth of a towering, pale statue of Andraste, then drops her hand. She looks at Solas, then at me with a question in the rise of her eyebrows.

I can’t look at him again. I can’t. My skin is writhing just being near him. ...But that doesn’t change the fact that while our goals are aligned, he would be indispensable in the war room. Nothing of heavy importance should come up before I can tell the others to be careful what they share.

I jerk my head in a consternated little sideways motion: ‘Come on.’

Cassandra opens the door for me. Past it stretches a long hall, so luxuriously appointed that it’s at complete odds with its entrance. There are doors along it on both sides, each larger, and sealed with shining lacquer and carved with intricate designs. Cullen takes the lead, and as soon as he does I can’t see anything past his stupid broad shoulders. Given how much it annoys me, I hazard a guess that I’m not used to being short.

I can feel Solas’ eyes on my back. _Dangerous, dangerous,_ my head chants.

I’m led to the last door on the left. There’s a long stretch between it and the end of the hall, and when I walk through, I see why: the room is massive. It’s ceiling is high, its floor covered in thick rugs, and it’s crowded with full bookshelves, polished desks with paper and quills on them, and generous, plush seating near the back wall and off to the sides, leaving the view of a large fireplace unobstructed. It’s like I’ve stepped onto an entirely new continent from the building I woke up in just minutes ago. It quirks my temper like the pluck of a string.

The space has obviously been converted in haste. There are empty places along the wall like missing teeth where two desks have been taken and pushed together in the center of the room. The map is there, so big it covers almost the entire surface, and it appears to have been weighed down at the edges with whatever was within reach at the moment. Mostly books, but I see a metal candle holder too, the short, fat candle still in place but unlit.

Josephine is smiling politely from the other side of the table, clipboard and quill at the ready. Her shirt is not, in fact, garish and metallic, but elegant and gracefully dignified.

I rub my arm absently where Roderick had clamped down on it as I walk toward the makeshift command center. Cullen’s eyes follow my hand, and the line of his mouth turns grim.

When I get to the table, Cassandra comes to stand at my left, the advisors are taking up their positions on the other side, and Solas is at my right. The arm near him tenses and I edge away, subtly. Everyone notices all the same.

Josephine tries to introduce herself. “זה תענוג לפגוש אותך. אני. Josephine-”

"'Montillet,'" I say distractedly, my eyes on the map. "'Yes, I know.'" I manage a glance up to give her a sincere, if muted, smile. "'Good to meet you, Josie.'" But my eyes are immediate back to the surface in front of me. My fingertips skim over the area where the Hinterlands are. Or at least should be. I’ve harbored a frail little hope that written Common might make more sense than spoken, but it’s cleanly dashed to pieces now.

I huff a sharp, quiet little sigh and look across the table, my fingertips tenting on it. Businesslike, I say, "'The Hinterlands. You want me to speak to Mother Giselle. Horses from Dennett, murder a bunch of people who hate each other so they can’t continue murdering and pillaging a bunch of _other_ people, get a report from Harding and a rather under-rated pun from Varric, kill some demons… murder some demons? I’m not sure how that one works, exactly.'" I resume my list: "'Steer clear of a dragon, bing boom, bob’s your uncle. That about cover it?'"

Total and utter silence reverberates through the room. Well, for people who can’t hear their heartbeats and breaths and the blood moving in their veins. I look on calmly, my eyes hooded a little, brows raised patiently while I wait for them to catch up. Something almost sharp comes from Solas, a smell, and my brows twitch together as I turn my face away, just a little. I am tight as a cable on his side, tensed and ready for an attack that, logically, I know isn’t going to come.

Cassandra says a single word, dazed. A discussion quickly follows. I let my eyes rove over the map, trying to learn at least the words of the different nations. Until I do, and then I get bored. I politely, and as unobtrusively as I can, ask to borrow Josephine’s quill, then bend over the map with it and a nearby pot of ink. I scribble a little on a blank sheaf of paper to get the hang of the pen. Using it proves more or less intuitive, it just requires a light touch.

I set about sketching on the map. The little scratching sounds are soothing, and the way they take me away from the obvious stress of the others’ conversation is almost meditative.

My hand moves in a practiced and steady way, the lines sure and fluid and easy as if I’ve done this many times before, and the image that’s taking shape is much more refined than I expected. That doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t sit discordant under my skin. This isn’t something I don’t mind being good at. So long as I don’t examine it too closely, because therein lies the slippery slope.

It occurs to me that I maybe shouldn’t be ruining what’s probably a very expensive map. But it’s already done. Better to leave a finished picture than a random scribble.

Everyone has stopped talking again and is staring down as I work, but I go on as if I haven’t noticed, the only sound the scrapes of sharpened calamus over thick, leathery parchment. When I’m done, I stand and tip my head to the side. The illustration passes inspection, so I hand the quill back to Josie with a smile that’s meant to convey my gratitude.

Cullen blinks rapidly down, then looks from the illustration to Leliana and back.

I’ve drawn the rabbit over Lake Calenhad, sitting up at attention and following the river at its base to make a long, swooping tail with a tuft on the end. When the Commander’s eyes slide up to mine, I give him a wink and look away so as not to give too much weight to it.

"'Ok!'" I say brightly. "'Carry on talking about what the actual living hell. I’m going to go sit down.'"

Leliana says a word and gestures to her eyes, then toward my face. I look at her, confused. After a moment, she just shakes her head. But I don't miss the loaded glance she gives Cassandra.  
  
My brows pinch together, but after a moment, I make my way to an overstuffed armchair, and as I settle into it, conversation trickles back to life. My back is against one of the armrests so as not to seem like I'm shutting them out. I pull the beautiful, horrible boots off my feet and set them neatly - respectfully - to the side, and bend my knees against my chest.

The warmth from the hearth seeps through the fabric over my arm and leg. I wiggle my toes in joy at their freedom, listen to the crackle and whoosh of the fire, and realize I can see colors in the glowing coal and the silk of the flame that have never been there before. It’s mesmerizing, beautiful… and bittersweet. A muscle in my jaw gives a jump as I clench my teeth, then smile sadly. The high, fitted collar of my shirt is suddenly too tight, and I tug at it uselessly. I let my head tilt to rest against the soft back edge of the chair.

After a while, a song comes to mind, pensive and cradling, rich and perhaps a little mournful. I close my eyes and listen it becomes a real thing and everything else falls away. I know this song, very well.

When it’s done and I come back to the room, I realize it has gone silent again. I look up, curious, and find everyone staring at me. Cassandra looks utterly nonplussed, there’s something dawning in Leliana’s eyes that I can’t quite place, Cullen seems deeply bothered, and Josephine is… awed. I don’t look at Solas. I can’t.

My brows pinch together and I look back at them until finally, Cullen gives a shake of his head, looks back to the others, and starts the discussion again, holding a hand out to indicate me as he does. Or debate, or I don’t know what. The cadence of their voices doesn’t give me enough to conclude much more than “tense.”

Apparently, I doze off after a time, because one moment I feel soft, heavy warmth, and the next, I open my eyes to what can only be the Fade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The notion of a "put up or shut up" encounter with Roderick taken from [here.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4753232/chapters/10866782) I haven't read past that point, but the idea behind it is fun, the fic so far is a clean read if I remember right, and the MC is one hell of a bamf.
> 
>  ~~For those who dgaf about immersion or are just too curious, I posted a translation of the Common in the comments.~~ (old version, probably the gist for what's left in is more or less right)
> 
> \- - - -
> 
> 7/12/18: Leveleh UPeh! ...That's supposed to be an awesome, excited Japanese accent. I question its success.  
> 9/20/18: Reactions to the NPCs and the advisors upon first seeing her changed, as has the mental fight scene.  
> 9/23/18: More eyeball stuff added, super brief, during convo in the war room  
> 10/3/18: English changed from italic to triple(ish) quotes


	7. Desire and Duplicity

Cassandra does nothing to hide her incredulity. Or awe. “By the Maker’s name what _was_ that?”

They’re all still staring at the Prophet, though she has looked away and is resting her head against the soft back of the chair.

“...Mournful,” Leliana says. “And I do not think she realized she was doing it. Did you see her face? She had no idea why we were all staring at her.”

Cullen mutters curses to himself.

Cassandra looks at Solas. “How is that possible? I have never even heard instruments that sounded like it. I felt the vibrations in my bones. And it was a man’s voice.”

The once-Bard, once-leysister has not looked away from the Prophet. “Should we be worried that she is sleeping again so soon?” She speaks quietly so as not to disturb the young woman.

“Would we have any way of knowing?” Cullen replies drily.

Solas is looking at her, too, studying. “To answer your question, Seeker, it was a work of magic, but it was done with such subtlety that I have not seen its like outside of the Fade.” His brow furrows. “It was as though....” He shakes his head, dismissing whatever he was about to say, and looks at Cassandra. “I would hazard a guess that this is likely not the last time she will surprise us. Nor the most impressive way in which she will do so. As for her eyes....”

“Shouldn’t we be more concerned with the fact that she has been wielding unknown and apparently complex magic _without meaning to,_ for instance?” Cullen asks, impatient.

“She was in control of herself from the moment she woke,” replies Cassandra.

“That was hardly what you told me.”

She gives a little shake of her head. “It was not a lack of control I saw. It was… surprise. But at every point beyond that, she knew what she was doing. No one can claim to know all the secrets of magic, but she wielded it with practice and refined skill. That, and the sorts of spells she used, I cannot imagine anyone doing that without years of training. Decades. She was no villager with a pitchfork and a torch.”

“But she can’t be older than seventeen!” Cullen whisper-shouts.

“You yourself pointed out only a moment ago how dissimilar she is to any race you have ever seen,” Solas says. “Even were that not the case, it may be little argument to stand on under the circumstances. Elves, humans, even dwarves and Qunari all share remarkably similar appearances, but their skills, weaknesses, and proclivities vary, sometimes wildly. Elves are more predisposed to magic than any other race, for instance. Dwarves have their resistance to spells and raw lyrium.

“She appears to be a youth, yes. But in my time with her I saw nothing that spoke of immaturity, nor of the lack of experience I would expect from a person of so few years. Her calm and focus, to say nothing of the temperance she showed in her actions, would put many seasoned warriors to shame. When you consider also that she arrived here mere days ago, apparently waking alone in a foreign, if not entirely alien land, being locked away and accosted with no way to communicate....”

Cullen’s lips purse as he considers. He was brought up well and had joined the Chantry at a young age. He had been sworn into duty as a Templar at 18. He had been trained, taught, prepared… and he had not been a fraction so centered or self-possessed - nevermind skilled - as this woman, young or otherwise. Solas is right.

“I believe,” the man goes on, his voice speculative, “she may simply something this world has not yet seen. And I would not discount the appearance of her eyes. Not the way they shifted in the beginning, and not on the color or peculiar appearance they have settled upon now.” A gold so luminous as to be almost unnatural outside of skilled metalwork. To the others they appear to have no pupils, but they are there, merely very, very small. “They are clues, and we have precious few of those where she is concerned.”

When Solas said “something this world has not yet seen,” Leliana finally tore her gaze away from the now-sleeping woman to arch an eyebrow at Cullen.

“Must we revisit this again?” he asks wearily, rubbing at his temples with the fingers of one hand.

“I fail to see why it is not the most important topic of discussion.” On anyone less refined, her tone would be called arch.

“Because, Leliana, we have to figure out what to tell the world about what happened at the Conclave. We have to head Roderick off when he comes back looking for her blood, and apparently keep her away from sharp objects when he does. We--” he cuts himself off and glances to her to make sure he hasn’t disturbed her. His voice had been rising without his meaning for it to. He quiets it to nearly a whisper. “We have a hole in the sky that is literally tearing the world apart, more reports every day of smaller ones across the continent spitting out demons, and because none of that is even mentioning the not insubstantial problem the Inquisition was formed to address in the first place!

“Whoever she is, Andraste help us, _whatever_ she is, she’ll be able to tell us herself soon enough. Speculating about where she comes from isn’t going to change how we proceed over the next crucial days and weeks.”

“She does not know her name,” Solas points out. “It is unlikely that she will be able to tell us whether or not she was sent from the side of a divine being.”

Cullen looks at Leliana as if the elf has just made his point for him. “If _she_ can’t tell us, what hope do the rest of us have?”

Leliana looks down, and Cullen knows he’s won this argument. For now.

“You are right,” she admits. “But it does matter. It must. All you have to do is set eyes on her to know she is not like us, nevermind the way she makes us _feel._ Surely even you have noticed? If she is sent from the Maker’s side, it changes everything. Perhaps it may even explain why the tragedy at the Conclave was allowed to occur.”

“If it was that important for us to know, don’t you think that after taking the time to create her and send her to us, He might have instilled her with the ability to communicate? With the knowledge of what she was? You’ve read the same reports I have and seen all the same things. It was as though she was _born_ the moment she fell from the Fade.”

“Perhaps she was.”

“What I mean is, if He was going to do all of this, to step in for the first time in history since Andraste, do you really think He would have omitted something so important at the very end? And either way, if this _is_ all happening by His design, perhaps what we need is to exercise some patience. Or if you prefer, she just spoke of the Hinterlands and the very things we wished to address there. That seems as much an endorsement as we could get under the circumstances.”

What he doesn’t point out, and won’t even to himself, is the rabbit over Lake Calenhad. If she is what Leliana hopes - and Maker help him, it would explain a great deal - what would that make it? She had _winked_ at him when she’d done it.

“None of which she could have known,” Josephine interjects. _”We_ did not know until yesterday, and she awoke only this morning.”

“And spoke to no one before Roderick,” Cassandra adds.

Everyone is quiet.

“No one has heard of anyone like her,” Leliana says quietly. “Between us we speak nearly every language in Thedas, and none of us recognize her tongue. It has the patterns and cadence of a true language, but no roots in anything we know. I believe that if we tried hard enough, we we could explain away everything unusual about her, but I also believe those explanations would become more and more flimsy as we went. And there is the one no one could deny, not even Roderick.”

Josephine is the one to voice it. “The way she feels.” Her eyes are soft on the sleeping form, her rich brow pinched.

“That may have a more simple explanation,” Solas says hesitantly.

“How so?” Cassandra asks.

“I cannot be certain without a chance to test the theory, but given the all but alien way she works magic, the way she does not tire from it, and the way she ‘feels,’ as you put it....” He pauses and looks at her sleeping form. When he goes on, he sounds lost in memory. “Many thousands of years ago, magic was very different than it is today. It took education and practice to refine, yes, but it was not magic as it is thought of now. It was a natural part of the world, will made manifest through the Fade. Spells that would be incomprehensible to mages today were commonplace even among the young and less gifted in that time.

“No mage alive should be able to create music as she did, not even with the greatest of focus, not with years of practice. And yet for her, it seemed as natural as breathing.”

Josephine asks, “How would all of that be possible? What was so different in the past?”

“My own magic was stronger and came more easily when I was near her. I also tired less quickly, and I suspect any mage would say the same. I cannot begin to understand the mechanics of such a thing, but it seems as if somehow, her very presence negates the veil around her. In essence, it is as if she is a direct connection to, or even a walking piece of, the Fade.”

“Like an abomination?” Cullen asks, voice going cold and grim.

“Not at all,” Solas assures. “Given my field of expertise and the amount of time I have spent studying her, it is all but impossible that I would have failed to detect the presence of even the most powerful presence within her. She is simply... unique. She is of this world, and she is also not.”

Certainty, bone-deep, takes root behind Leliana’s eyes. It is like a call she has not felt in nearly a decade and a half.

It is Josephine this time who breaks the long silence. “The teacher will be here for her tomorrow, and the linguist the day after. Between the two of them, communication should not be an issue much longer. I am assured that if she is reasonably intelligent, which she obviously is, she will be able to carry on reasonable conversations within two to three weeks. If we can identify her language, it may also allow us to learn something of her origins and find someone to contact on her behalf. If any such person is to be found. Our position is precarious at best, but we have the resources to see this matter is tended to properly.”

“I have already begun circulating false reports,” Leliana adds. “Differing accounts of what happened, of her appearance-”

“But sooner or later we will be expected to take an official stance,” Josephine says.

“All the more reason to find a way to speak with her as quickly as possible. Until then, this at least buys us time.”

“Actually, I may be able to assist with that, as well,” Solas says. “In the Fade, there is no natural language. I can meet with her there tonight, pose any questions you wish, and return with the answers in the morning.”

Cassandra studies him. “...We can only guess why she wanted you here today, Solas,” she says, the reticence in her voice plain. “You have been helpful, no one could say otherwise, and it is truly appreciated. We would have lost her twice now if not for you. But we do not know you, and to trust you alone with something so important....” She pauses, obviously uncomfortable. “May we… might there be a way for the rest of us be present when you speak with her?”

“Certainly. You enter the Fade each night when you dream. Seeking you out would be simple enough. You may then pose whatever questions you have for yourselves, and any answers obtained need not be left to doubt.”

“Than--”

The conversation cuts off abruptly, because the girl is _screaming._

 

* * * * *

 

It resembles the raw Fade, the ground hard and a sparse green fog in the air, but everything is softened. Before I can look around, I hear a sharp bark, and something in me ripples.

A dog appears through the mist, running toward me. Its face is pointed and its legs long, its coat a rich, deep brindle. There is a swath of pure white blazed over its chest and on each of its feet, as if they have been dipped in light. There’s the ripple again, a heartbeat within a heartbeat. I know this dog. And from the way it spins in excited circles when it reaches me, and tries to jump up and lick my face, its tail a wagging blur, it - he - knows me, too.

I kneel down and scratch both sides of his neck at once - something I know he likes. I’m smiling, and laughing as his cool tongue licks my tightly closed mouth. He barks at me again and drops to his forelegs, haunches in the air. I’m smiling so hard I almost can’t see him.

But then I feel something, and it makes my smile fall away. I know this dog, yes, but he feels wrong. There is a sour note around him.

And I am in the Fade. I fell asleep in the war room.

I stand slowly. “What are you?” I ask.

It cocks its head at me and perks its ears.

“What are you?” I enunciate, my voice unfriendly.

It hesitates, then its shape whirls and grows in a flowing, liquid cloud that settles into neither man nor woman, but a constant, curving figure of candle smoke and water, only vaguely humanoid and perfectly entrancing. It’s beautiful, like a hot drink and green forests and warm arms and--

Ah. Desire. And not a Spirit of it.

“You _are_ quite clever,” it purrs. Its voice is the most beautiful thing I have ever heard, like Home in a sound. “I only wanted to give you a little taste of something you lost. A kindness. You are so very alone, and confused. Strong, yes, certainly that. But you’re not all strength underneath.”

It moves closer, languid and graceful. It brings to mind a rearing snake. “Remarkable, but not perfect. I know. I see you. And I like it better that way, in fact. Perfection is terribly dull, but most people fall for it right away. So easy, so hungry. You, though....” It makes a humming sound. “You’re so _beautiful._ Almost like me. We can’t be strong all the time, can we? You need someone, one person, who sees the real you. Someone to take the edge off the pressure, and there will be so much of it. But one would be enough.” Fingertips form on a limb as it extends. They brush my arm; I realize it’s bare. I’m in a sleeveless gown, simple but made of fabric that feels like it has sky woven into it.

Desire begins to circle me. “I see inside, you know that. But did you know I can see everything you can’t? Everything locked away? You don’t even have to tell me anything, I already know it all. What you want, what you crave, what you need, what you fear.... Would you like to know where you come from? Or better yet, would you like to know what you are? The answer will surpr-”

 _”Enough,”_ I say, my voice stony. Because it _is_ tempting, of course it is. But I’m not an idiot. “If you do know me, then you know I have no intention of signing a contract with a demon, especially not my first time in the Fade.” Second, technically? “Shoo.”

It laughs, a sound at once pure and sexual. “Oh, darling. _Little One.”_ It says the words like a taunt or an insult. “This is not your first time in the Fade.” It leans in and whispers, “Or your second,” then carries on normally. “You have so many secrets buried inside. If it is the responsible thing you wish to do, you should know how very dangerous it is not to know them. You cannot imagine how dangerous. To yourself, to your friends, to the world. You won’t find my price so unbearable, I promise you that. After all, what’s the point if it robs you of satisfaction? I will give you,” it leans in again to whisper in my ear, its breath like honey and butter and soft drunkenness, _”everything._ And I will never lie to you.”

Its words brush deep inside me like silk.

“I have no wish to make an enemy of you, but I will not ask you again. Leave me be. I will make no deals with you.”

It laughs. “You _really_ should.” I feel it look me up and down, though it has no eyes. “But I suppose that’s alright. I was only here to distract you, anyway. A mouth appears in its face, too wide and too large, and it spreads into a horrible grin, all sharp teeth and venom.

“Distrac-?”

I cut off because something clamps down around my ankles; I look down to find dark hands coming out of the ground, wisping through it as if it’s as insubstantial as air. Before I can so much as twitch, a massive form swells and grows from the soil and I’m lifted into the air and hung upside down. It is black as ink and standing on two long, spindly legs that end in needle points. Its four arms are the same, save for the two that have formed the hands that hold my ankles. If I were real, I’d worry it was going to fracture the bones.

When my dress falls over my face, the creature rips it away, leaving nothing but scraps of fabric over and around my shoulders. A long tongue, far too soft, wraps its way around my waist and hips and between my legs, wends over the flat of my stomach and the valley between my breasts, ignoring my attempts to break free.

“If I couldn’t have her, neither can you,” Desire hisses.

The creature holding me rumbles, so low it’s a vibration more than a sound. It shakes even the air.

I lash out with a frantic spell and sever the arms holding me. The creature roars and wheels back and I _run,_ but more hands catch at me and I slam forward into the ground hard enough to leave me dazed. More and more rise and grab at anything they can reach to hold me in place. Something heavy sits on my back.

I burn and freeze and cut and slam them away, I struggle and sear pain into flesh. I manage to break free and by some miracle get myself to another part of the Fade, but they follow me, and every time I look up there are more of them. Demons of every kind I’ve heard of and things that I have never even thought to imagine and forces I can’t see at all. They claw and nip at me and hold me with too much force. But no matter how I fight or how I run, no matter how many I kill or maim, they never really, actually hurt me. They never try to kill or feed.

There are hundreds of them, so many that I know I have no prayer of fighting my way out. Fruitless though it is, I do the only thing left I can think of: I cry out for help. I scream, feral. I scream as hands and mouths are pressed into my flesh, I scream as I am held against bodies, licked, nipped, as I’m pulled--

My eyes fly open; Cullen is standing over me, hands on my shoulders, shouting and shaking to get me to wake up. I scrabble away, knocking the heavy chair over, and he yanks himself back, but by my second gasping lungful of air I’ve caught up to the fact that I’m _awake._ An involuntary sob tears from my chest and I lunge forward, throwing my arms around him, burying my face against his neck. I know he’s afraid, I know I’m holding too tightly, but I can’t help it. He is safety in a storm and I am terrified, filled with the buzz of adrenaline and magic, snapping in the air around me while I try to calm down. Solas is saying something, forceful but soothing, and the air smells sharp and musky.

What does it, I think, is the tiny, almost inaudible sounds coming from me. I sound like a frightened child. Cullen wraps one arm firmly around me and, after holding up a hand to the others and saying something quiet, wraps me up and holds me. He murmurs soft words.

When my breath is still shaking but my chest is no longer working like a bellows, I pull away. My face is growing cold where tears have apparently been falling, but I don’t bother with them.

After a grateful look to Cullen, I swallow around nothing several times trying to speak, then remember it won’t do any good anyway. I have to tell the others, I have to figure out a way. There’s no chance this was a one-off; it isn’t safe for me in the Fade, but I can’t just… not sleep.

Cassandra asks a question, worried, but gentle. Cullen says something too. He’s watching me with a knowing look. Why? Because he knows night terrors? Because he’s seen a mage plagued by demons?

How can I...? I see Josie. I see Josie’s _taskboard._ I walk up and take her pen, my hand fast as a snake, then flip over a corner of the map, sending the candelabra that had been holding it in place toppling over the edge of the table with a clatter.

I hastily scrawl out the vague form of a demon. Enough of them look similar for the others to get the idea. Then I rip the corner off the map, walk up to the nearest wall, and slap the paper against it. I look at them, point to the illustration, then to a brick, and hold up a single finger, pointedly. They seem to follow well enough so far, so I put the drawing back on the table. I point to the chair where I’d been, pantomime sleeping, point again to the image, then gesture, broadly and clearly, to every brick surface in the room.

It takes them a long moment, but when horror begins to dawn on one or two faces - Cassandra and Cullen first, though behind the others, Solas’s eyes widen. I’m trying so hard to just not look at him. - I know they’re starting to get it. They explain, and Josephine’s hand goes to her mouth. They’re all staring at me.

 _“'What do I do?'”_ I ask, not bothering to mask the desperation I feel.

Cullen takes a short step forward and utters something, his voice soothing as butter on warm bread. I just look at him, my eyebrows pinched together.

They exchange words. Solas pipes in, and everyone’s faces change. He’s given them an idea, I think, but they don’t like it. Cassandra and he talk. She grows annoyed, then Cullen grows angry, but Solas remains unperturbed. I want to hit him.

As the others discuss, they keep shooting worried looks my way. Then abruptly, everyone just heads for the door. Everyone except Solas.

I cast a panicked look at the retreating group, but all I get is a worried backwards glance from Cullen and a nod from Cassandra that’s obviously supposed to be reassuring, which makes it the exact opposite.

When the door shuts behind them, my eyes snap to Solas, who is regarding me with a look of calm. His hands unclasp from behind his back and give a gentling motion. _It’s alright,_ they say. _You’re going to be okay._ But he’s giving me that same look like he did before the Breach, like he’s waiting for something.

He takes a step forward and I immediately take one back. He looks confused. Then he starts speaking. It takes me longer this time to realize it’s Elvhen. I just look at him, perplexed, while he goes on.

“តើអ្នកកំពុងធ្វើអ្វី? តើហ្គេមនេះគឺជាអ្វី? អ្នកអាចនិយាយដោយសេរីពួកគេនឹងមិនយល់។”

I recognize one word: _falon._ The furrows in my expression deepen.

“Nuaelan.” He takes another step forward, I take another back, and his confusion turns to pain. His eyes close.

Softly, “តើមានអ្វីកើតឡើងចំពោះអ្នក? តើអ្នកបានទៅណា? តើអ្នកមកពីណា?”

He waits, but I have nothing to give him.

“...តើអ្នកពិតជាមិនស្គាល់ខ្ញុំ ទេ? កពិតជាល់ ?” There is so much sorrow in his voice that for a moment, I can almost see him as a person again. Just a person, just a man. But then, though I can’t _see_ anything that changes, it’s as though his face twists into something sinister. I shake my head as if I can banish the feeling, but when I look at him again, his expression is hardening. When he speaks this time, his voice is almost cold, it’s as if a different person has taken up under his skin, three feet taller and as intimidating as an angry parent to a small child. He launches into an inscrutable monologue that is sharp and biting and sounds accusatory.

About fifteen seconds in I interrupt him, exasperated. “'I told you _I don’t speak elvhen,'”_ I say with an overexaggerated shake of my head. “'Can you stop acting like a lunatic and _help me?“'_  I beg.

His face holds there for a moment, imperious and authoritative, and then he deflates. He sighs, gives a little shake of his head, and his demeanor shifts yet again, this time to one I know: a professional, scholarly detachment. He begins gesturing. Eventually I gather that he knows some sort of spell that will help with the language barrier, maybe even bypass it entirely.

“'Are you kidding me?'” I demand, quiet in my anger. “'If you knew how to fix this, why didn’t you say so from moment one? Or at least after I wasn’t bleeding to death anymore? You didn’t think this was important?'” I snap.

His brows pinch together and he considers me. Then he smiles like he’s looking at something he never thought he’d see, something familiar or maybe something heartwarming, and that it’s so bittersweet that he couldn’t begin to express it.

My face twists and I take another small step back - my last, because I bump into a cabinet - and there’s that sorrow again. He holds his hands up in an apologetic way, like he’s trying to soothe a wild animal. He gestures, asking for my permission to approach. I hesitate, glance at the closed door, and give a wary nod, watching him closely.

When he’s only a few feet away, he tells me to breathe deeply - to relax - and accompanies it with a single word. It’s contrary, trying to calm myself in front of him, but this is important enough to try. When he tells me to close my eyes, it’s harder still. He repeats the word, “breathe” or “relax.”

He moves so close I can feel the heat of his body, but there’s more, too, something in the air, as if it carries its own field of energy. Maybe it does, he _is_ a mage. His thumb and forefinger gently grip my chin and I jerk away, my eyes snapping open. He has that same placating look on his face, calm and what I know is supposed to be unthreatening, and I don’t goddamned like this, I really don’t, but I know I have exactly zero other options. So I close my eyes. I relax again, but it takes much longer this time.

He coaxes my jaw down until my lips part, and the moment they do his hand falls away and I feel a spill of magic, cool and light as it washes over my palate and down my throat. It feels shifting, like it’s moving within itself, and I drop down into the feeling; it’s like a soft bed at the end of a very long day. All my tension vanishes to be replaced by calm, my fear by certainty.

He inhales through his nose, slight and almost hesitant. At first it’s short, but another follows that’s long and lingering. There is a warm scent, with earth and the tang of magic, like a mountain and the cool slither of a creek, like plaster and parchment. It feels... known. I want more, like it’s a desert oasis I’m pushing toward, begging the relief of water. It’s a door, and it feels as though the whole world is on the other side. I inhale deeply. I tilt my chin up to take in more of it. He’s so close that when I do, my lips brush his. But it doesn’t matter - it pales in the face of this feeling that everything is fine. Better than fine. Place disappears. So does time, and self, and any reason I might ever want to know those things.

Warm, soft lips press to my bottom one, and my body stirs in response. It’s hesitant at first, so hesitant. But then they take my lip in and nibble at it, the tiniest, softest bit, and I groan and lean forward. There is someone in front of me, flush and familiar and all I feel is every nerve ending in my skin, and a roiling, inviting sort of want uncoiling in my gut.

Something snaps, I feel it like I feel the breath against my face and the arms suddenly circling me. I am pressed into something at my back. Two sets of breath speed and turn ragged. There’s a smell that is _killing_ me, setting me burning and aching. My leg presses forward, asking entrance between two thighs. My ankle hooks around a leg to pull it closer. Lips and tongue are fervent against my own, bruising. So hungry. My hips press forward, asking, needing, _begging--_

Something is... missing, isn’t it?

Magic?

Hadn’t there been a spell? It had been cool on my.... Wasn’t there supposed to be....

My eyes snap open, and with them, the room, the world, the _other person with me_ all come back.

I shove him away and before either of us can so much as blink, my arm snaps forward and my elbow slams across his cheekbone. I stand, panting, glaring murder at him. Blood is already pooling under his skin, his cheek swelling and darkening. I hadn’t held back, I realize. I’m amazed his skull didn’t crack.

“'Cassandra,'” I yell. “'Cullen, Leliana!'” If they don’t come back right now, I’m going to do far worse than bruise him.

I had wondered at my change in attitude toward him. My distrust. I don’t any longer. Any hesitance I had felt toward the instinct is wiped out.

The door opens so forcefully it may as well have been kicked in. Solas steps back, and when they enter, when they take in the scene, they all pause. I am glaring murder at Solas, my eyes don’t leave him. I’m not sure they ever will again.

“'What was that?'” I demand, my voice deadly quiet. “'And I swear to god if you tell me you can’t understand me after that, I’m going to do a lot worse than break your face.'” My eyes fair warn murder.

Cullen tries to say something harsh, to demand an explanation, I assume, but my hand snaps up, silencing him. Neither Solas nor I spare them a glance. He answers me, at least.

But he answers me in Common.

I stare at him, the moment stretching like a band of elastic. Lead settles in my stomach.

“'You are not serious. Tell me you’re not serious.'”

He doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t have to. It’s there in his eyes. He understands me, at least.

“'I suppose that’s something,'” I allow. “'But just to be clear, you understand, but you can’t answer?'”

He nods, an apology on his face. A muscle in his jaw twitches once, almost imperceptibly. Like me, he’s still breathing hard. It makes me nauseous.

I walk up until I am inches from his face, and I breathe, I fairly growl, “'I don’t care if it takes a week and every gesture and picture you can conceive of, you are going to explain to me what the unliving fuck that was about. But not right now. Because if you try right now, I might literally kill you, and unfortunately, we have a lot of work to do and we need you for it.'” I lean in, and my voice, my face, everything about me turns glacial. I can see my breath when I speak, and I hear the crackle of ice forming on the stone where I stand. “'But if you come within five feet of me without my express permission again, I will remove whatever body part is closest without hesitation. I trust you know I’m telling the truth?'”

He nods, solemn and serious. But not afraid.

I bare my teeth at him, I can’t help it. But then Cassandra is there, putting herself between us and barking a question at Solas. He dismisses it with some smooth words and I want to hit him again.

I don’t know what he says or what she gleans, but she feels at least some of my anger. Cullen is angry, too, but I don’t know why.

Cassandra puts her hands on my shoulder, and I realize I’ve been staring fixedly at Solas again, as if I were a feral cat readying to leap. When I meet her eyes, they pull me back to Earth, and I feel the air shift. The others calm down.

I take a breath that’s openly calming and give her a nod to reassure her.

 

* * * * *

 

I’m left alone on my side of the table. Cassandra stands toward the head at my left, and Solas is off the opposite side, nearer the Advisers than he is to me, as he translates what happened to me in the Fade. A ripple goes through the room and faces turn grave. They understand the dire situation, at least. Not that they wouldn’t, but it’s comforting to not be the only one who’s more or less bordering on something like panic.

They converse among themselves, mostly Cassandra, Cullen, and Solas, though sometimes Leliana or Josephine interject. It veers dangerously toward an argument at one point, and seems to end with a solution agreed upon - one Cullen looks not at all happy about. No one else looks especially pleased, either, which is tremendously reassuring.

The gist is explained easily enough: Solas will act as a shield for me in the Fade.

“'No,'” I say immediately, everything about me flat and cold and hard.

Solas says something entirely reasonable. I clench my fist to keep from throwing something at his stupid, shaved head.

Cullen says something, begrudging and obviously in support of Solas’s idea. I turn to him, incredulous, which makes him tighten. But he only shrugs. ‘What other options do we have?’

After a second, I look away, swearing. None. None is the number of other options we have. Options we know about, at least. I’d bet my right arm, Mark and all, that Solas could come up with something else if he really wanted to.

“'...Fine,'” I say. “'Fucking fine. But someone will be sitting with both of us all night, and at the slightest sign that we might be dreaming of anything but kittens and butterflies, I want us woken instantly.'”

When he passes that on, Cullen looks mollified. Maybe even gratified or relieved.

I sigh heavily. “'Good. Now we can get to the things that that are actually important.'”

 

* * * * *

 

It’s haphazard at best since I haven’t had a chance to prepare and didn’t think I’d be able to have this conversation so soon. I want to just tell them everything, but I think it would be too much all at once. They couldn’t act on most of it right now, anyway, and I’m sure we’ll get there sooner than I’d like, regardless.

There’s also the fact that I don’t trust my interpreter as far as Varric could throw him, which makes me less than keen to have him eavesdrop on all the sensitive information.

I start easy, I start small. I look at Leliana. “'Something unexpected is coming. An unpleasant surprise, you could call it. When it does, I know what your instinct will be, how you’ll want to deal with it. However… I’d like you to stop before you decide. To remember.'” I pause. “'I’d like you to consider that you still have the capacity to surprise yourself.'”

It’s something Dorothea, the woman who became Divine Justinia, had once said to her while she was fighting to survive the aftermath of Marjolaine’s betrayal. She had encouraged Leliana to surprise herself. I have no problem using the words now to pry her hands from the deathgrip she has on the idea that the only way for her to be in this world is as this dark thing part of her so wishes to become.

Recognition sparks behind her eyes, and when I hold steady under the question in them, telling her I know exactly what I just said, they widen. The naked expression is beautifully, disconcertingly unlike her, and reminds me of a woman she has not been for a very long time. It twists something painfully behind my sternum.

I go on to tell everyone of the meeting Giselle will tell us about, and what she’ll want us to use it for. I ask Leliana to find Zevran and to get him here before then. I want to deal with Envy before it leaves Val Royeaux, which means we’re going to need firepower. We can’t march a small army into the city, especially not with how we’re seen right now, which means the few people we take will really need to know what they’re doing. To that effect, I ask Cullen and Leliana to make sure they’re in fighting condition, if they aren’t still, and ask the Commander to find the Chargers as soon as possible. I warn him of their price, but assure him they’ll be worth every copper.

“'Er… bronze?'” I ask. “'Is that what you use here? It’s bronze, right?'”

Solas nods as he translates.

I warn Leliana that their involvement will mean a little more work for her from time to time, and at her questioning look, just tell her their leader will explain when he’s hired.

“'Have the Wardens started going missing yet?'” I ask.

Leliana gives a disquieted nod. I’m doing my best to ignore the way she’s staring at me now. Some sort of fire is catching behind her eyes. The others are vacillating between gaping at me and standing with increasingly disconcerted expressions. It’s not entirely comfortable, but it’s certainly to be expected.

“‘Fabulous,”’ I mutter to myself. I consider, but realize there’s nothing to be done for it, not now. We could have Magister Erimond assassinated, but even if that proved to be wise, there’s no way they’ll trust me enough yet to order something like that just because I ask for it.

The real trick to all of this is the balancing act of not overextending because we know what’s coming; to be prepared while changing as little as possible so Corypheus stays predictable. With a decent teacher, I should be fluent in Common in two to four weeks anyway, given my total immersion, so we can talk about all this in more detail soon enough. Or at least hopefully it will still be soon enough. Me being here would likely ripple badly enough on my own even had I decided to keep my mouth shut.

I ask them to collect Dagna immediately. Leliana seems to have a vague recollection of her. I also ask them to plant an agent in deep cover in Sahrnia in Emprise du Lion and watch for disappearing people or strange behavior, particularly on the part of their leader.

There are small things, too. I ask for a container that can hold veilfire so we always have it on us. A dress fit for a high society salon before the meet in Val Royeaux. I tell Solas to share everything he knows about the veil-strengthening artifacts. I convey the locations of major deposits of resources, High Dragons and other dangers, and the effectiveness of certain abilities against the Rifts.

More than once, when the topic veers nearby, I feel a pang of sadness over the demons at the Rifts, given that most of them won’t be demons before being yanked here, won’t have a desire to come here at all. Maybe I feel more strongly than I would if my own situation weren’t what it was, I don’t know. But when I feel that sorrow and regret - I don’t know how, because there is no sound, no phantom “feeling” in the air - there is something from Solas. A feeling, I couldn’t begin to guess what, but something I would call soft. It sets part of me to hissing.

I look down and chew absently on the pad of my thumb, mumbling to myself. “‘What else, what else....’” We can do nothing about Alexius - we have no proof, and even if we did, it wouldn't be enough to detain a Magister. Trying to do so right now would likely only create fruitless pressure for Josephine to handle. Maybe she’d like the challenge, I don’t know.

I shake my head. “‘I know there’s more, but I hardly thought we could have this conversation, er, ‘conversation,’ yet, and I think those are the most important things right now. I can put together a list of things to know for the Hinterlands and give it to you by the end of the day, if you’d like. It will mostly be supplies for some watchtowers Dennett will want built before he’ll agree to come, and supplies for refugees. Goodwill supplies, if you’d like. I could probably start marking some things on a map of the area, too, if you have one to spare.

“‘Can you read my language?’” I ask Solas without looking at him. I’ve refused to do so for some time, now.

He shakes his head.

“‘Wonderful,’” I mutter under my breath. “‘Then I guess what I meant to say is ‘I can dictate a list to Mr. Grabass over there.’ Preferably somewhere very public.’”

Josephine says something that I take to mean, “I’ll see to it.” I think it safe to assume Solas chose a creative interpretation of that last bit.

“Corypheus,” Cassandra says. "אמרת שזה היה לו שראינו חורבות הישיבה הסגורה .אבל “Corypheus, מת. Varric נשבע שהוא נהרג."

I don’t need to speak Common to make a decent guess what she wants to know. I wither a little at what I have to tell her.

"’Varric and the others did kill him, yes, really and truly. Dead-dead. I assume that’s what you’re asking?’” She nods when Solas finishes the translation. I return the gesture. “‘Corypheus doesn’t _stay_ dead, that’s the issue with him.’” I laugh drily. ”Well, one of the issues. Guy’s a lunatic. Anyway, there is a way to weaken him enough to kill him permanently, at least in theory, but it’s well out of our reach for the moment. We have to cover a lot of ground first.’” ‘Unless one of you has a souped up and well-trained High Dragon in your back pocket,’ I don’t add.

"אֵיך--" Josephine says, stymied.

"היא הראלד של אנדרסטה," Leliana says, a mix of confidence and wonder.

"אני לא יודע איך עוד היא יכולה לדעת את כל זה," Cassandra says, her tone somewhere between Josephine’s and Leliana’s.

Cullen is silent, but looking at me with an intense gaze, as if searching for something.

"שאלתי אותך בתקווה תוכל להוות עצמכם ערב," Solas says, and even he sounds almost a little off-balance.

“‘...I don’t know what you’re saying, obviously, but you sound like someone just knocked you sideways. I’m sorry. The best I can give you is… I really relate to the feeling. The only thing I know about myself is that I’m not this person,’” I glance down at my crimson- and gray-clad body, “‘and that I don’t belong here. Or at least, I’m not from here. I’m sorry.’”

Cullen gives me a look of pity or compassion, I’m not sure which.

Cassandra shakes her head and asks something, her words slow and pointed. I think I recognize a few of them from what the others just said. She’s looking at me, patient, but expectant.

“‘Is this some sort of version of ‘How does she know all of this?’’” I ask, looking toward Solas’s general direction. He nods and says a single word. So now I know “Yes.” I’m making progress already.

“‘That....’” I laugh a little. I can’t help it. “‘That is such a good question. It’d be nice if I knew the answer, huh? You know, like I know the thousand or so things I have to reason or right to know.’”

“...Andraste,” Leliana says quietly.

I shake my head. “‘I know you think I’m her herald or whatever, or you wonder if I am. That’s a philosophical question that only has a philosophical answer. Basically if that’s literally what I am, well… nobody told me.’” I pause, and add churlishly, “Not that I remember.’”

She narrows her eyes at me, studying. Everyone has a similar look, in fact. Probing, questioning, doubting.

I clear my throat. “‘I, uh, I assume a teacher is being arranged for me so I can learn Common?’”

Josephine nods, but one too many others glance at Solas. I narrow my eyes at him. “‘If there has been some suggestion that you’ll teach me until someone else is arranged, I trust you’ll come up with a suitably convincing argument against the idea,’” I say coldly.

He nods with businesslike detachment. It’s a facade.

“‘Good. As for the reason I asked you to come with us here, it’s because I have the personal preference that you be allowed into the war council on an advisory status.’” I’ve gone back to more or less pretending he’s not there, but I catch his surprised look from the corner of my eye as I speak to the others. “‘I don’t expect him to be let in on any especially sensitive matters, but the--’” I have to bite my tongue to keep from saying “the unfortunate truth.” “‘The truth is, you’ll find his input useful when he has it to give. Just be warned he can be kind of a bigoted mule over some things.’” This elicits understandably curious looks, but I just shrug. “‘He’s a genius. That tends to come with some stubborn blind spots, and it isn’t like we don’t all have them. He’s just too used to being right and seeing what others don’t. And having them argue with him before they bother to listen. It’s an interesting mix of an inferiority complex and a superiority complex - you don’t need to translate that sentence. Its built a thick skin. And to banish any doubt on the matter, impossibly, he is even _more_ of an expert on the Fade and its magic than he claims. And yes, there is a difference between demons and spirits, both of which he is also the foremost expert on. In the entire world.’” I may look like I’ve swallowed something bitter by the end.

Somewhere in there, Solas looked at me, only a glance, but were it possible for us to have a conversation, I’d understand that I was going to be getting ambushed and tactfully but thoroughly - and probably in a manner that would make me want to hit him upside the head - questioned in the very near future.

“‘Just don’t bog him down too much,’” I add as if I almost couldn’t care less either way. “‘We’ll need him in the field.’” Sadly. Then again, better I’m there to keep an eye on him than he be left here without people aware of how careful they need to be around him. I don’t trust him, no, but I don’t want to warn everyone else off him as thoroughly as I probably should, either. It isn’t remains of what I’d felt for him before this morning, but that’s all I know about it.

The truth is we probably don’t need him, not with everything I know. But the idea of letting him slip away into the world at large sets me on edge, too.

I opt not to broach the “I’ve never used magic before” subject, at least not right now. Entirely stupid, most definitely, but given my “muscle memory” with it, it’s a chance I’m willing to take for now. If push comes to shove, I have a lot of one-on-one time ahead of me with Solas, and if I’m being honest, I’d rather learn from him than any Chantry-approved teacher the others would arrange.

“‘Aside from that,’” my voice going speculative, “‘I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t mind being tested to see what I can do in the field.’”

Cassandra gives me a droll look, to which I say, “‘Different weapons and things, I mean. I should be hit with a full barrage of templar abilities, too, and tested against other mages, maybe? I don’t know. I just don’t want to be surprised by something when we’re out in the field and the rest of you are counting on me to, you know, not die. I don’t know if we have any templars with us, but I figured at least you could hit me with a Spell Purge or something. I don’t think I’ve ever felt any abilities like that.’”

Cullen and Cassandra exchange a few words, and Cassandra gives a crisp nod.

“‘Excellent. Uh....’” I trail off, scratching the back of my neck absently. “‘I guess that’s it for me? For now, at least.’”

Cullen speaks. "הבאתי אף אחד איתי Kirkwall. ישנם שני טירונים נשארים איתנו כרגע. אני לא לא יודע את המידה או חוזק של היכולות שלהם ,אבל בהתחשב בכך שהם כל הדרך יש, הם עלולים להשתכנע לעזור .זו החלטה נבונה ,כל עוד היא יודעת שזה הולך לכאוב." He’s looking at me with a mix of concern and warning.

I narrow my eyes at him. “‘That sounds suspiciously like you’re trying to mother hen me. Are you trying to mother hen me?’”

His brows go up.

“‘Because I know you’ve seen that I can take care of myself. And I know you know that coddling a soldier who’s about to have to fight repeatedly for her life and the lives of others is not very wise. I may not really know anything about myself, but it seems a safe assumption this isn’t my first scrape.’”

Now Cullen just looks baffled, but gives a shake of his head.

My cheeks heat. “‘...Oh. Hey, well… uh… sorry about that, then.’” Suddenly it’s very difficult to look at him.

No one says anything.

“‘...Rrrright. I’m going to go bang my head against a wall repeatedly in the vain hope that this is all some sort of strange fever dream. Or, you know, as a nice healthy form of stress relief. Either way.’”

Leliana objects, concerned or uncertain.

“‘Look I’m not going to do anything stupid. I mean I don’t think so. Not intentionally? But I don’t get the feeling I’ll do well if I’m cooped up. I think I kind of need to go and pretend none of this is happening for a few minutes. Wander the snowscape or something, count the barbs on a bird's feathers. I don’t know.’”

Cullen gives an “inaudible” huff of a laugh and says something to the others. They look at me, then at one another, and Leliana nods.

“‘Ok,” I say. Then wryly to myself as I turn away, “Glad to know I have your permission, tiny squishy human things.”

I spare a smile to four of them and slip out of the room into the empty hall beyond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Giant black spindly demon was an homage to Fizzgig, introduced in [this,](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3440570/chapters/7542584) more featured in [this.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3722593/chapters/8245474) Both stories are absolutely hysterical and also yummy - that's a technical term, "yummy" - and manage depth.
> 
> I ran into the idea of Leliana thinking a very alien Inquisitor is from whatever plane the Maker lives on or whatever in a story whose name I don't remember and that I can't find in my history. It's a Skyrim/DA:I crossover, Bullmance fic. Cute story, super fun premise, not finished (if it hasn't been taken off the site).
> 
> Translation of Common in the Comments (old version).
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> 5/19/17: Hawke is a woman now. Again. Well it's again to me.  
> 7/16/17: Reference to Nua's age added in the adviser meet, along with dialogue to make it fit  
> 7/15/18: First scene (walking out and finding a place to chill) taken out to match last chapter until level up of this one  
> 10/3/18: Ding (Level up)


	8. Pride. . .

The room I was given wasn’t small. Which was good, because all I did for the rest of the day was hide in it and eat.

After I finished the large tray of food the woman who’d shown me to the room had brought - a sampling, it looked like, all rugged and served on a tray that was comically too good for it - I went searching for more. All it took was an eating motion to send a laysister not far from my door running. It was a little embarrassing.

Not as embarrassing as the stares, which was why I hid in my room. Most people tried to be polite about it, but it didn’t matter. I could handle them fine, really, I just. . . didn’t want to. Not now. I felt like I was missing a wall that I needed to have in order to be out there and not care about them.

For what was left of the day I sat in an overstuffed chair in front of a lit fireplace hugging my knees or a pillow and let myself go away. When I got bored, I ran my fingers over incomprehensible words in books from shelves on my wall. I listened intently to any voices that passed by my door. I did a good deal of stretching, too. I found I needed it. And I found that this body was remarkably limber - I felt like I had been flexible before, but this was some kind of borderline contortionist wizardry.

My body wanted to move, too. It was asking for something, but I couldn’t tell what, so I felt antsy and unsettled even after Solas came to tell me he was going to sleep, and I finally stripped to my underclothes and laid down atop the blankets of my bed to try and sleep. But I drifted off.

Given that aside from my field trip to the Breach, I’d basically been in a coma for a week or so, I was oddly tired.

 

* * * * *

 

Solas was waiting for me when I opened my eyes to the Fade this time. Desire had told me I’d been here before, and though I would have sworn up and down that it was wrong, there was something about it that felt familiar and known.

We were standing in a perfect replica of my bedroom, though that didn’t have anything to do with it.

“I thought it best to start somewhere familiar,” Solas said kindly. 

My eyebrows shot up, and it made him smile. He really _was_ different here. It was almost like someone had pulled the rafter out of his ass.

“There is no language in the Fade,” he explained. “There can be, if you wish it, but since we are not really here speaking to one another and since we are not truly hearing anything, language boils down to intent. The language of the ancient elves was not dissimilar. That is why I tried to speak to you in elvhen. It seemed to upset you. That was not my intent.”

“I know," I sad dismissively. "So. . . if I'm not really talking and you're not really hearing, does that mean I could speak to you with my mouth closed?”

He nodded, smiling again, probably enjoying playing the teacher. As much as I wanted to clock him, I also hated him a little less this way. Which made me want to clock him more out of nothing but confusion.

‘Fascinating,’ I thought at him, a wry, sarcastic version of his own use of the word.

“That is certainly one word for the Fade, lethallan.” He said the moniker in an oddly soft voice.

The almost-smile I’d had on my face dropped like a chunk of lead. “Don’t call me that,” I said coldly. “I’m not your lethallan. I’m not anything to you.” My tone came out even more harsh than the words, though it was unintentional.

He didn’t argue. He didn’t take offense. He just. . . looked at me. For an instant before he nodded and uttered, “My apologies. I did not mean to presume,” I saw pain and grief. I saw a sorrow so deep that I couldn’t understand it and. . . profound loneliness.

“. . . Can I talk to other people in the Fade?” I asked, voice drastically more gentle. "Find them, I mean." The idea that I could try to find Cole early had occurred to me in the evening as I sat staring at the fire. So did the idea that I could look for Anders.

His brows raised slightly, impassive mask back in place. “That is the plan for tonight, in fact.”

A look of confusion settled on my face. “Come again?” I didn’t really believe in coincidences, and that would be one the size of a cargo train if he planned to seek people out with me.

Like that. Pieces of my past came back just like that. An ocean of gray nothing, and then suddenly I remembered trains. Vaguely, but still.

“The others wish to speak with you,” Solas explained. “Cassandra, Leliana, Josephine, and the Commander. I told them it was possible in the Fade. If you feel ready, we can go to them now.”

“. . . So that’s a yes, then. How do you do it? I mean, do you have to know them to find them?”

“It is helpful if you do, yes.”

“No I mean do _you_ have to know them. I’m not the Fade master here.”

There was a small, odd look on his face. He opened his mouth to answer, but I cut him off, reminded of Fen’harel by my phrasing. “How safe are we?” I asked almost sharply.

“Perfectly,” he assured.

“No I. . . .” I growled silently. There was no way around telling him this. “Fen’harel,” I said.

He went oddly still. Even his expression locked.

I looked down at my hand. The mark was flared to life here as it had been before I'd closed the Rift below the Breach. “This is his,” I said softly. 

"The elven god of betrayal?"

"Don't play stupid, please," I said wearily and looked back up at him. "I know you know who he is. What he did. That the Creators were monsters and _he_ was the Peoples' protector. But that’s not the point. This is his, and he can’t be happy that it’s. . . you know, seared into my flesh. I doubt he’d even care that it wasn’t my choice. I’m thinking the demons today were sent by him. I didn’t really see him as the type to hire out to demons, but I hardly--”

‘I hardly know him,’ I was going to say, but the words stuck in my throat and pieces of the dream I’d had of running through the woods with him came back to me. I put a hand to my head and groaned softly.

“. . . Herald?” Solas asked. There was something odd about his voice.

“I’m fine,” I hurried to say, wanting to preempt his concern. “There’s just. . . there are things floating around in my head, pieces, splinters, and I’m not sure what’s a dream and what’s. . . .” 

I shook my head to clear it. “It doesn’t matter right now. My point is he’s probably not happy about this,” I said, holding my hand up. “And he’s. . . well I doubt the title of Lord of the Fade was ironic. Whether or not he sent the demons,” I hoped he had, because I didn’t want one more question to have to answer, “he can’t be happy about this, and keeping demons away is one thing. Keeping him away. . . .” I looked around subtly as if he was about to burst through one of the walls.

“There are rules in the Fade,” Solas assured me, “just as there are rules in the physical world. Every creature, legendary or otherwise, must abide by them. I have you well hidden. If such a creature is indeed looking for you, this will at least slow it down, and I will be able to feel it coming. I have taken precautions.” 

He gave me a look I couldn’t identify. “But why do you think this magic is from him? Is it something you divined? And what do you mean when you say it wasn’t your choice to take the mark? How did you come to have it?”

“I guess you could say that, but I _know_ it’s from him,” I corrected. I averted my eyes. “. . .I think I remember getting it. I mean, I don’t know what else it could have been. It’s the first memory I have, but it's. . . confusing. Complicated? I have a feeling that's going to be my new favorite word,” I mumbled to myself.

I had a surreal moment of realization that I _knew_ that an ancient figure of myth was as real as I was. Or as real as Solas or Cassandra were. I didn’t know what the hell _I_ was.

“You said the others wanted to talk?” I prompted, eager to change the subject.

He looked at me a long moment, and I could tell he wanted to ask more, but all he said was, “Yes. Are you ready?”

I nodded, and the Fade blurred and shifted.

Leliana was crouched before us in an opulent room playing with a little boy. She was younger and dressed in finery. Solas called out to her softly and she looked up. At first she was confused, but very quickly, lucidity came to her eyes and she stood up.

She cast a covert, wistful glance at the little boy but otherwise ignored him and walked up to us. “We are in the Fade, then.” She said. “It worked?”

“It did,” Solas said, a satisfied undercurrent in his voice. “We’ll go to collect Cassandra now, but the transition may be disorienting,” he cautioned her.

Prig hadn’t warned me first. Ass.

"I will be fine," Leliana said. "This is not my first time in the Fade."

We fetched Cassandra and then Josephine in similar fashion, but when we made it to Cullen, we found him having a good dream. He looked to be a little boy, playing with other children who, we found out shortly, were his siblings.

Solas took a breath to speak and break the dream.

My hand darted out reflexively and gripped his wrist. “Wait,” I said quietly. All four heads turned to me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off little Cullen. His hair was a golden, pale blond, and he was smiling the way only a child can. He was happy and free. My eyes softened.

“Can we. . . is there any chance we can do this without him?” I asked, eyes still welded to him.

I assumed everyone was confused by the question, because no answer came right away. “He’s having a good dream,” I explained. ‘He has so few,’ I didn’t add.

I looked at Cassandra knowingly and she, at least, understood; comprehension spread behind her eyes. “It. . . would likely be fine,” she said. “We can report to him what we learn tomorrow, and speak like this again in the night if it is necessary. He was not entirely comfortable with the idea to begin with."

I gave her a grateful and perceptive smile.

“It is considerate of you,” she said. "How much do you know of his situation?"

"All of it," I said bluntly as I turned away. “Shall we?” I looked at Solas, not interested in traveling further down that road. At least not without Cullen's permission.

Solas took us to the war room. Unimaginative, perhaps, but appropriate.

"You said you may know how you came to have the mark," he said, getting right to it. He stood a respectful distance from my side, and the three women were before me.

I nodded, gripping the scarred palm behind my back. I didn't say anything.

". . .How?" Cassandra prompted. She had taken to the transporting quicker than anyone else. Josephine had looked like she couldn’t decide whether to be intrigued or uncomfortable, but had settled in since, and Leliana. . . Leliana had been hard to read, because she was fixated on me. It was not a comfortable feeling.

I pursed my lips and let my eyes unfocus. "I was in the Fade. Physically, I think." I refused to look up at anyone's faces, but I heard a sharp intake of breath and a soft curse.

"There was a person, someone with long blonde hair that was practically glowing, but I couldn't make out any of their features. I couldn't tell if they were a man or a woman, not even from their voice. Which wasn't a voice it was. . . I don't know, but it wasn't a voice. There was a woman, too, either an elf from clan Lavellan or a Trevelyan, I don't know which. She had dark hair, but I didn't get a look at her features.

"The blonde spoke to me. And then it grabbed my hand. The _woman_ was the one with the mark, but I think whatever it was. . . I think it took it from her and burned it into me." I looked up. "I've never felt pain anything like that," I said emphatically, "but the woman. . . I think it killed her. I passed out, so I don't know for sure, but. . ." a heavy ball settled in my stomach. "To be honest, I would pray she didn't live through it," I said darkly.

There was a leaden silence in the room.

"Then what we saw in the vision at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. . . ." Cassandra seemed to pick over the words as she said them.

I nodded. "Whoever that woman was, _she_ is the one who interrupted the sacrifice. I'm fairly certain I wasn't even in Thedas until after the blast."

"What do you mean?" Solas asked.

I shook my head. "I want to get to that later. One thing at a time."

"What did she-- what did it say to you?" Leliana asked after another heavy silence.

"I don't remember much, but it was nonsense. I think the pain burned too much of it away. I think--" I stopped myself. I had to be careful not to mention anything out of order, like the creature's hint that I would become Inquisitor. "It said it had taken from me, but that it had given more. It was vicious about the mark, but before that it was tender, like it knew me. It implied we had talked before, more than once I think, and it said that I shouldn't be afraid, and that I needed to find myself, my _heart,_ and use it. It said that when it came for me, I would be ready."

 _"Came_ for you?" Cassandra asked.

I gave half a shrug. "That's what it said. 'When it's time.' But it also said not to bother looking for it, basically that nothing in heaven or earth would find it until it was time. And it knew about my 'ride' back to Thedas. That it would be there soon. . . . It said the pain was unavoidable, right before it grabbed my hand like a vice."

"Your ride?"

I nodded. "That. . . I'm almost positive I know what it was talking about, but I can't be sure. Was there a glowing figure seen above me in the Rift when I was found? A woman?"

"Yes," Leliana said. She sounded excited. "And the creature who gave you the mark. . . you said it had blonde hair. Are you certain? Could it have been a woman?" Her eyes were intense.

I gave her a flat look. "I don't speak unless I'm positive," I said a little more bluntly than I should have. "And I know what you're thinking, but it wasn't Andraste. I mean technically it could have been, but I wouldn't bet your house on it. Things in the Fade can look like whatever they want, and I doubt Andraste would have gone to such lengths to hide her appearance," if she really was a deity in the first place and not just dead like every other person who had come before us. "Almost all the momentum we have - and yes, most of the controversy too, but I know you'll turn that to our advantage - is because people think I'm her. . . I don't know, disciple or something. But the glowing woman definitely wasn't her. It was. . . an after-image of Justinia. Part her, and part spirit, I think."

Solas looked incredibly intrigued. Dare I say, _fascinated._

 _"Justinia_ saved you?" Cassandra asked, incredulous. "She brought you back from the Fade?"

"There isn't a simple answer to that. I can't say no and I can't say yes; it was a _piece_ of her, so. . . sort of?"

"By the Maker," she breathed.

Leliana looked like I'd just said 'I am one million percent positive that Andraste sent me direct and I'm totally her BFF and I know everything about her and we have slumber parties every Friday.' I pursed my lips and looked away.

"How are you so certain of all of this?" Cassandra asked, incredulous rather than suspicious.

"I have no fucking clue," I replied honestly. "I can prove that my information is good," I offered. "But you won't like how."

“Is it any stranger than anything else that has happened since the Conclave?” The she asked, sarcastic and dry at the same time.

“. . .Fair point." I looked at her for a moment until I landed on the perfect thing. A smile tugged at one corner of my mouth. "Your favorite book series is Swo-”

“She is telling the truth,” she cut sharply overtop me, voice flat and blunt as the broad side of a sword.

I had to purse my lips into a downward smile to keep a chuckle down.

“Are you saying that the only way she could possibly know what books you like is through divine sight?” Josephine asked doubtfully.

“Yes,” Cassandra replied bluntly.

Josie looked unconvinced.

“I can do Leliana next,” I offered. "There are some real gems from her time with Alaine during the Fifth Blight. There was this woman in the Pearl once, Isa--"

“I did not question it,” Leliana defended.

“. . . No,” Josie said uncertainly. “No, as impossible as it should be for you to know what you do, I am inclined to believe you.”

“How _do_ you know what you do?” Cassandra asked. For the third time. And I had no idea why, because the woman wasn't stupid.

“No,” Leliana said. “That isn’t the important question. _Who are you?_ Where do you come from?”

I looked between her and Cassandra; I dearly wished we could be having this entire conversation away from Solas. How delightful that the person I trusted the least was the one who had to be next to me if I wanted to talk to anyone, whether I was asleep or awake.

“That isn’t what you’re really asking me, is it?” I said softly. “You’re asking if I’m the Herald. If I was sent by the Maker and Andraste. You want me to say it.”

“Of course I do. We need the Maker's help, now more than ever,” she said emphatically.

I gave her a crooked and apologetic smile. “I can answer that, Leliana, but I’d only be giving you my opinion. And I’m guessing you have more than enough of those already.

“I don’t have any more to tell you about the rest of it than I did earlier today,” I said with a glance at the other two. “I still don’t know who I am. I still don’t know where I come from, only that it was very different from this place. From Thedas, I mean - I’m not from here at all. 

“I know I existed before this,” I said, speculative, “but trying to remember anything about it is like trying to look through fog. I see shapes sometimes, blurry outlines, and the most random pieces of information will pop into my head for what seems like no reason at all but. . . that’s it.” Like the fact that I didn’t used to have this body. Where had it come from? Had the asshole who’d burned the mark into my hand had something to do with it? Were they the reason I was here, too?

 _’Don’t waste time looking for me,’_ it had said. _’I will be as dust on the wind.’_

Leliana shook her head. “But the way you are, the things you can do, the things you know. For you to appear now of all times, the Maker _must_ have sent you,” she insisted. “A piece of Divine Justinia brought you here and watched over you from the Rift. A glowing blond figure gave you the mark and said that it knew you. You are from another world. Couldn't it be that you are not from another world, but simply another place? Andraste and the Maker do not walk Thedas. Could you not have been with them in the Maker's realm? It would explain everything, all the impossibilities about you. And if there was ever a time for Him to step in, now must be it. The Divine is gone, the faithful war among themselves, and the people suffer. Andraste had a kind heart, she would not want this to stand.”

I sighed. “Occam’s razor,” I mumbled.

People had been using gods to explain the unexplainable as long as we’d existed. Gods created everything, gods were behind the seasons, the rising and setting of the sun, childbearing, disease. . . . Maybe way back behind everything else, it was a god of some kind driving everything. But even if it was, there was always a logical answer, too. A how, or a cause and effect in place of a why.

I could see how Leliana’s reasoning could make sense, but it only did so because she _wanted_ me to fit that mould. Because her belief structure was her metaphorical bones, and she needed it to survive, or she may not. I didn’t know much, but I knew I had come from a place where other, perfectly normal people lived perfectly normal lives. I was not made from ether and I was not descended from the side of a god. The ‘Herald of Andraste’ question was purely philosophical.

At a normal volume, I hedged, “Leliana. . . .I know what the Maker means to you. Well enough to know that I probably _can't_ know. The life you’ve had has been full of deceit and betrayal and the worst things people have to offer. One after another, you learned that what you counted on couldn’t be counted on, and who you believed in couldn’t be believed in. That nothing was as it seemed. People are fickle and the world shifts under your feet like fine sand.”

Everyone was still and silent, watching me.

“The Maker isn’t that way,” I said. “He is constant. His rules and expectations are set. He isn’t going anywhere. His intention is clear and does not change, and he knows peoples’ hearts.”

I looked at her for a long moment, eye to eye, telling her I was sorry - not that I pitied her, but that I saw her pain, and that I took it seriously.

“Justinia was beautiful,” I went on. “She did everything a child of the maker is supposed to do. She followed the rules, she was a model. And the Maker didn’t save her. He didn’t save her work or her Conclave. He allowed her to be murdered and the horrors of what is happening to continue. He allows innocent people to suffer en masse.”

Her expression had gone rigid.

“The Maker was, is a lot of things to you, I know that. I think one of those things was a safe harbor for what remained of your trust and your faith and the purity of who you used to be and what you used to believe. And you feel betrayed. That sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. The anger that seems almost feral.

“But the Maker isn’t a person. He isn’t so fickle, and I don’t think you feel like you have any options left. If the Maker cannot be counted on, what is there left to believe in? What good is there in anything?

“If I was sent by Andraste, then the Maker can explain himself, because an explanation is long overdue. You want to be wrong, you want there to be a bigger picture you’re not seeing, a _reason,_ because if there isn’t, then what has been the point of everything? Of anything? What has your faith and your belief and your pain and your loyalty been for?”

A tear spilled down her cheek. She didn’t wipe it away, and I didn’t act on the urge to step forward and hug her. Which wasn’t as hard as it should have been; even in the Fade she had probably managed to strap herself with a dozen blades and poisons.

“But I’m not a god, Leliana,” I said softly. “I can’t speak for one, not really, and I don’t think the truth is as simple as you want it to be.

“If there is a higher power, it has to be something so far beyond our comprehension that we couldn’t hope to understand it. We couldn’t attribute mortal values and morals to it. But if there is one and it created us, it’s also what gave us the ability to choose. Free will and the ability to exercise it are mutually inclusive. You don’t have one without the other. If the Maker interfered so openly and clearly, what would have been the point of making us the way he did? People would just think ‘it’s alright, the Maker will take care of it.’ And they would _still_ suffer, wondering ‘why isn’t he stepping in?,’ because one person's miracle is another person's travesty.

“If the Maker exists, and if he _is_ something we can understand, I can’t pretend to know why he’d allow the Conclave to go so horribly wrong. Maybe it’s part of some meandering plan, a tragedy necessary to bring about a great good in the end. Maybe he's a cruel, abject bastard. Maybe as Chantry lore says, he really has turned away from man." I didn't have the faintest idea why they continued to worship him as if he was listening when their own gospel clearly said that he had left them all behind. "All any of us could do is guess, and we’d never know if we were right. Whatever I am, whatever I can do, I’m no different. But I can point to dozens of other atrocities throughout history, some far worse than this, many that predate the Chantry by thousands of years and ask you: if he didn’t interfere then, why would he now?”

“Do you not believe in the Maker?” Cassandra asked.

I considered my words. “. . . I believe in something. What that something is isn’t easily defined.

“I don’t have faith in a higher power the way any of you do. I do have faith, but it looks nothing like that. But I understand that other people do. That it means everything to you. So all I can tell you, Leliana, is that one of two things is going to happen now: you’re going to find a reason for this that fits into your faith, into your understanding of life and its meaning and the Maker. Or your faith is going to shatter, and eventually it will be replaced by something else. It happened to me once. I was a broken person, and it never came back. Something else did, though, a different sort of faith, a stronger one.

“You’re a person who needs something to believe in. It doesn’t matter what - a person, a cause, an idea - as long as it’s worthy. You’re a creature of faith. That’s a good way to be. But what you’re asking me. . . I can’t tell you what to believe. I can’t tell you why anything happens or what it means or why I’m here or you’re here, or any of it. But if I can make a suggestion?”

I waited for her to nod before going on.

“Think about the world you _want_ to live in, and find a way to live as if it already exists. I’m not telling you to try and bring it about, to try and shape the world to your ideal, no matter how just it may be. I’m telling you to try to see that world in the one you live in here and now.” I saw the denial in her face, the resistance. I knew how impossible it would seem to her, so I didn't blame her. “All it takes in the beginning is one thing, one tiny thing, and the first step is taken. Beginnings are often very, very small. It could be as simple as one person being polite to another. Or someone staying in a world where she has no place because it's the right thing to do.”

I paused to let that sit for a moment.

 _"Can_ you return to your world, then?" Josephine asked.

I shrugged. "For all I know, stepping through a Rift would take me back. But I'm not inclined to try, what with the fact that your whole world would end if I took the mark and ran."

I turned back to Leliana. “Your mind, what you think, how you see things, it can change everything. Think of Roderick. His world is full of suspicion and schemes and threats and villains. Someone else's is full of people who are good and mean well and try when they can. Neither of those people know more than the other, they just assume differently, they see their own beliefs in the motivations and actions of everyone around them, and those assumptions color _everything,_ so they change every experience each of them has until the world literally becomes a different place for each of them.

"You, Leliana. . . .” I looked at her seriously. “You are a person who can either save the world, or damn it. You are someone whose steps have impact. It’s your responsibility to choose which road to take, every day. If I can help you, I will. You can call on me as you would a friend. I’d like you to.

“So can you,” I said, looking at Cassandra and Josephine in turn. “So can Cullen. So can Varric, so can--” So could all the others who would be joining. “I don’t know why, really, but it’s important to me that you all believe that. I don’t know you. I only just met you. But. . . .” ‘I love you,’ I wanted to say. That felt foolish. “Well.” I looked down and absently picked at the skin between my thumb and forefinger.

“I’m sorry I can’t tell you more. I’m sorry I can’t give you the answers you need. I’m sorry I can’t. . . help.” It felt like a physical pain, not being able to soothe the wound in her.

No one said anything for a long time. Then Cassandra cleared her throat and spoke slowly. “You said that Corypheus was the creature that killed Justinia. You said it cannot die. What do you know?”

I paused, then looked down at my glowing palm for a moment. I sighed. “Corypheus was a man once, in ancient Tevinter. A decent enough man, actually, or at least not a cruel one. His name was Sethius Amladaris of House Amladaris. He was considered middling and his House unremarkable, but he felt he deserved more.

“He was the High Priest of Dumat. In his time, people were turning away from the temples and the Old Gods, and he became afraid, and so open to the suggestion of a means of restoring things to the order he was used to. Of putting power where he wanted it. People do not like the feeling of change, or of losing control. He was not different.

“Sethius heard whispered promises of godhood in his dreams from Dumat. The Old Gods were real, but, I think, not exactly what the Tevinters believed they were. It didn’t matter in the end.

“Sethius convinced the High Priests of the six other Old Gods, a group together called the Magisters Sidereal, to help him in his cause, to help him do what Dumat bade.”

A sense of dread was settling over the three women in front of me. They knew enough of this story to know where it was going. It was one of the pillars of their religion. Solas was silently rapt, almost too intense and too still.

“They cooperated,” I went on, “each intending to betray the others and take that godhood for themselves. Once they had a plan, they gathered the resources and cast the spells and together. . . they physically entered the Fade. They set foot in the Black City.”

I didn’t look up, but I felt a heavy weight settle in the air. No one moved. No one breathed. 

“Corypheus’ plans now are no different than they were then,” I said. “Apotheosis, though he already believes himself a god now, and ultimate Tevinter supremacy. He has webs woven all over Ferelden, Orlais, and Tevinter to make it happen, plans laid and set in motion. Allies. For all his arrogance, he actually plans quite well.”

I paused, sighed again. “I think. . . if there ever was a Golden City, it was gone before the Sidereal entered the Fade, because it was already blackened when they got there. More likely is that the Old Gods lied about all of it - the glimmering city, the ascension - to lure the magisters there. I don’t believe it was their journey that triggered the first Blight, either. The two are connected, but its corruption would have had to begin long before their trip to the Fade. It tipped the scale somehow. In either case, the Blight wasn’t, isn’t, a punishment for man’s hubris. It was never that simple.”

“But the Chant of Light--” Leliana began. 

“The Chant is wrong,” I interrupted, voice hard but kind. “The Chantry has gotten a lot wrong over the years. Not everything, but enough. You may call it a divine institution, but in the end, it is run by mankind, and mankind has never changed. There has always been ignorance and greed and arrogance mixed in with the compassion and honor and wisdom, and the worst of us fight more viciously and yell more loudly than the best of us.

“Ameridan, the first Inquisitor, was an elf. Dalish, in fact. A close friend of Emperor Drakon. But in the Chantry’s need to make their march on the elves palatable later, his identity was an acceptable sacrifice when they purged their records, as mine likely will be some day. An elf can serve, an elf can be a thief or a murderer or a heretic, but not a saviour. 

“Humans were not the Maker’s second race. The Blight is not a punishment. The Maker didn’t create the Veil. Magic is not inherently dangerous and mages do not need to be caged--” I held my hands up, placating, against the arguments I could feel coming. “The way they and the system are handled right now, yes. But that’s because the system is virtually creating and priming powder kegs in the forms of people. Tranquility is reversible. But if that was known, it would hardly be the deterrent it is, would it?” They looked dazed. Stunned. Part of me wanted to stop, thinking I was being cruel. But I found I had a vicious distaste for the idea of leaving all this sludge and garbage buried, as if. . . as if I were as personally offended by it as Solas was the willful lies of the dalish. I had to shove that aside or risk feeling ill. I had no interest in relating to that man.

“Lies for the greater good," I said. "Ignorance is strength. The people cannot be trusted with themselves or with the truth. Our lies and chaos are better than theirs.” I shook my head. “I’m not saying there’s an easy answer, because there isn’t.

“The Avvar are a nomadic people thousands of years old who have a drastically different relationship with magic and spirits and the fade and mages than your people. You would consider all of it heracy, foolhardy and arrogant and dangerous, but their way has kept them safely for thousands of years. The Avvar have just as many mages as the rest of us. Magic is not kept at heel, but their society is not ruled by mages. And they do not have abominations.

“You could adopt their ways. Abolish the need for circles, the need for ‘normal’ people to fear magic. But you won’t. Because the larger problem isn’t circles or templars or the danger of magic, it’s ignorance and the idea of ‘us’ and ‘them,’ the need people have to define what is better and what is worse, and to scorn anything that doesn’t conform to their idea of the way things are supposed to be. 

“And that won’t go away. It’s as old as any race and as instinctual as the need to eat and breathe. My world has been trying to destroy prejudice for hundreds of years. We forced it. Passed and enforced laws, gave protections, forced equality, re-educated new generations. But the worst of it always survives, like a blackened vein clinging to the heart. Because it is _easy_ to blame someone else, it is easy when you can see and touch a reason that everything is wrong with the world. When you have an enemy, you don't have to look at the fact that _you_ may be part of the problem. It's much easier to think of yourself as a hero or a victim than a villain, and most people never give in to the inclination to question themselves, the questions that whisper in their minds. Much easier to listen to the voices that shout and to give in to the easy fixes, the ones that pay off immediately." I looked down and said quietly, almost mournfully, "We're all terribly short-sighted."

More harshly than I intended, I said, “Anyone who thinks they have the answer is an utter fool, and anyone who has an answer that may actually work would be stoned to death simply for suggesting it.

“Solas knows true elven history,” I said. I glanced at him and saw attention, curiosity, wonder and appreciation and. . . warmth. Some of those were more a feeling than anything, and I turned back to the others quickly. “He speaks the ancient tongue perfectly. He knows the ways that were lost. For a year before he arrived in Haven, he tried to help the dalish, to teach them. At best he was shunned, at worst he was attacked. This from the people whose core tenet is clinging unflinchingly to what they used to be. You'd think if someone knew things that were lost from their sacred histories, they would at least consider what he had to say. But no. He was only a 'flat-ear.' The dalish are as hateful and prejudiced as any of the humans that they so deride," I said, my voice gone hard.

Solas had no patience for willful ignorance. Perhaps what I had no patience for was willful blindness.

“People cling tightly to their beliefs, and we are wired. . . er, built, so that any threat to those beliefs will get the same reaction as a threat to our lives. Aggression, denial, anger, violence. All of you have seen it enough to know exactly what I'm talking about. Look at Roderick. He's only going to get worse before all of this is over, and anger and outrage are more contagious than courage and kindness.

“So yes. There are other ways, better ways, safer ways. But there’s so much more. This place, for instance,” I gestured around us. “The Fade. Spirits. They’re _not_ demons, and they’re not dangerous. They’re safer than most people, so long as you treat them with respect. You can’t even say that much for our races.

“The Maker didn’t write the Chant with his own hand,” I said, gentling my voice. “Nor did he personally translate it as language changed and time passed and the rules and ideals of society shifted. All of that was done by people, and people make mistakes. They have prejudices even when they mean well, and no matter how careful anyone is, things get muddied over time. The dalish,” I said with a huffed laugh, half incredulity and half sympathy, “good lord, what they’ve gotten wrong, as tightly and proudly and carefully as they’ve passed on their history. . . .”

“Do you know much of them?” Solas asked.

I glowered at him. “I know that’s a hot button of yours, but is this really the time?”

“. . . Of course. Please, continue.”

This would not be the end of that subject. I could tell that. And I couldn’t blame him, not really. It was like when I'd talked about saving spirits yesterday; he was used to everyone fighting him on the simplest things when he knew he was right, and here I was, someone who not only believed as he did, but didn’t need to be told any of it in the first place.

I had sour news for him if he thought we were going to bond over any of it. I didn’t even want to be in the same room as him after what had happened in the war room.

“Right,” I said. “So. . . I’m not going to go around telling everyone all of this once I learn Common or anything. I’m not here to prosthelytize. I’m not here to convert anyone and I’m not interested in the wars that would start if the things I have to say took root. I’m telling _you_ because it’s you. Because the truth is going to matter before all of this is over, and the ones who are going to change the world should have a better idea of what it is than their upbringings have allowed.

“Mages, what the templar order has become, the Seekers and the Chantry, how you see spirits, your narrow view of magic in general, many of the rules you have and the ideas you base them on. . . . It’s wrong. And it isn’t the way it has to be. If no one else learns that, I have no intention of hiding it from the people close to me. I don’t care if you believe me, but I would like my views to be respected, as I respect yours. What I care about at the end of the day is that we treat one another with respect. There’s never going to be a world in which everyone believes the same thing. Fortunately that isn't a requirement to be civil to one another, though too many people like to pretend it is.”

All of this was met by a long, long, heavy silence. I wondered if they felt like their heads were going to implode yet.

“Speaking of which.” I took a deep breath. “This,” I held up my right hand, “is not the only way to close Rifts. Alternatives are very rare, but they do exist. I doubt any of them could close the Breach, but that doesn't mean we can't find something helpful. There are a lot, a _lot_ of Rifts all over Thedas that are going to need closing. Solas has already suggested recruiting the mages to bolster the mark’s power, right?”

“No,” Cassandra said, and she didn’t sound pleased. “He did not.”

“I was puzzling over the idea,” he said, sounding a little dazed, “but I did not have anything formed well enough to suggest it.”

I sighed. “Right. Yes. Ehm. . . I’m sure it’s very disorienting and it feels like I’m plucking ideas out of your minds,” I said, weary of their surprise and shock and incredulity and whatever else. “But I’m not. I don’t read minds, I just. . . I don’t know. Everything I could explain to you about what I know I already have. Pithing though it was.

“An ancient Warden named Avernus, another from the Storm Age named Sophia Dryden possessed by a powerful demon, and Alaine have all sealed Rifts.”

“You do not mean Alaine Theirin, the Queen of Ferelden?” Josephine asked.

“The very same,” I replied. “Leliana saw her do it. Given the type we’re dealing with, I don't think Alaine would be of any help even if we could reach her, and Avernus will have vanished with the other wardens. Either way, I figured it was better to know your options. I--”

I looked up and took in the faces of the women before me.

“. . . Do you want me to stop?” I asked gently. “I suppose this is a lot to take in.”

“No,” Cassandra said. She had the determination of someone who was about to eat something on a dare. “As you said, it is best we know what we are dealing with. We may need every piece of information we can get before all of this is over, and it will help to know what we are truly dealing with. Even if it is a good deal to take in.” Then she said dryly to herself, “We will have to draw straws to see who will tell Cullen all of this tomorrow.”

“I can talk with him tomorrow night, if you’d prefer,” I offered.

Cassandra looked taken aback.

I raised my brows. “Have you never worked with an elf before?” I found that impossible to believe.

She looked at me like I’d started speaking English again. “Of course. But what does that have to do with--”

“You mentioned my idea of using the mages to bolster the power of the Mark. Do you know if it will work?” Solas cut overtop of her.

I raised a brow at him, but answered. “Yes. It will. We’d be able to close the Breach by using the templars, too. Cullen was right when he said they could suppress it enough. I intend to recruit both, and," I added, voice glib, "I have a wildly impossible dream that we can talk them into working together close it.”

“That is good news,” Cassandra said seriously. “But how do we stop Corypheus? Surely a creature like him will not give up so easily. You said you knew a way.”

“Yes,” I said again, “I do. But that’s a long way off, and frankly my head is swimming from what we’ve already talked about. I imagine it's much worse for all of you. So if it’s alright, I’d like to maybe not talk about any more catastrophically dire things tonight.”

Cassandra exchanged looks with Josephine and Leliana. “Very well. Is there anything else immediate that we should know?”

“Before tomorrow night? I don’t think so. But if I remember something important tomorrow I can always grab Solas. What about learning Common?”

“A tutor will be arriving for you tomorrow," Josephine said. "Your study plan will likely be aggressive," she cautioned. "A linguist is on his way from the university in Orlais, as well. If you are truly from another world, I do not know if he will be of any help, but I do not think it could hurt."

I nodded. “I’m not afraid to push myself. The sooner I can speak and listen on my own, the better. What about my combat testing?” I asked Cassandra.

“You will likely need a break tomorrow at some point. Come out to one of the sparring areas and find Cullen or myself. We will pair you with someone or test you ourselves. You said you wanted to know what a templar’s abilities would feel like too, is that correct?”

I nodded, disproportionately encouraged to hear that Solas had translated something right. I didn’t have a reason to doubt that he would, not really, and intentionally getting something wrong would have been idiotic in the long run. Still.

"I will make sure there is time when I speak to her tutor," Josephine assured.

"Leave time for her to recover," Cassandra said. "The effects can be extreme, especially if she does not know what to expect. And we have no way to know how it will affect her odd magic."

I nodded and waited.

“I have no other questions,” Leliana said. “I. . . need some time to think.”

"You mentioned the missing Wardens yesterday," Cassandra said, "and again tonight. Do you know where they have gone?"

"Yes, I do," I said, sobering. "Nothing good will come of it. Corypheus. . . Varric told you he can influence the minds of Wardens, right?

Cassandra paled. "Are you saying he is behind their disappearance?"

I dipped my chin. "His plan with them is rather ingenious, actually. He has found a way to emulate the Calling. They believe that every one of them will die soon, leaving Thedas with no protection against future Blights. It is literally impossible to kill an archdemon without a Warden, and it has made them desperate. And desperate men. . . ." I trailed off, letting them finish the thought for themselves. "One of Corypheus' agents is in place to take full advantage. Corypheus - no, Sethius, has no army yet, but he's moving to amass one quickly, and he wants the Wardens among its numbers."

"His agent," Leliana muttered, piecing something together. "The assassination you mentioned."

I nodded and smiled a little, happy to see how fast her mind could work. "The very same."

She exchanged a look with Cassandra. "We will have to speak to Cullen about this immediately."

"Agreed," Cassandra said darkly. She looked at me. "You said there was nothing else immediate we needed to know." It was an accusation, though she had obviously capped the sharpest of its teeth.

"I also said that if you weren't willing to take my word on the assassination - completely understandable - that it was best I not tell you. We would need to move in before they had a chance to scatter or do anything else stupid, and we have more time until the issue with them comes to a head than we do with either the mages or templars. But I'm not a strategist. I would want to move to stop the Wardens immediately, but in doing so we could lose the templars or the mages or both. Even one would be deadly for us."

Casandra massaged her forehead with one hand, then shook her head. "What else?" She asked.

"The red lyrium," I said. "It will be the key to all of this - that's why I wanted to get Dagna here as soon as possible. Her mind and ideas and the research she can do on it will be invaluable. But there's nothing we can do about it before tomorrow, and if it's all the same, I'd _really_ like to be done now," I said sincerely. The world was starting to buzz and I felt like something was clawing to get out from inside of me. I needed to stop, or I would pay for it later. I just didn't know how or what that meant.

“I have no questions,” Josephine said. “You have told us more than we could have hoped. We will be able to do a good deal with the information. I will continue to try and find out where you may be from or who your people are. We have much work ahead of us.”

"Yes," Leliana said speculatively, an intense but veiled gaze directed at me. "We do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I misused "ironic," for the popular definition rather than the correct one. Just so you know that I know.
> 
> . . . It is likely not the worst of my linguistic/literary sins so far. >_>


	9. . . .And Solace

As they left, I wondered if they felt as overwhelmed as I did. Which was a stupid question. They felt _more_ overwhelmed. I’d been plunked into a new world and a new body; they’d had the foundation of everything they believed rattled.

I was worried about Leliana, though. She’d looked. . . shaken. If I had said something wrong to her, something that would nudge her in the wrong direction. . . . 

A dark!Leliana was a deeply unsettling idea.

I wanted to ask Solas if we could stay near Cullen. If the man’s nightmares started, Solas should be able to help, and he could get decent sleep for once. But it felt like an invasion of privacy, and that wasn’t something I’d hand to someone I didn’t trust. 

I wondered how I was going to keep a conversation with him from happening. I got the sense that he was about to explode from all the things he wanted to ask me, and being interrogated by him was the last thing I wanted to have to stave off. Night after night.

I glanced at him. 

Through him and the war room, as if they had turned to images projected onto fog, emerged a massive, ink-black, furred face, wisps drifting from it like liquid smoke. 

A paw extended, wider than my hips, followed by a leg, a lowered neck, a chest. . . . 

Solas and the war room were dispersed into nothing, and in his place six eyes were fixed on me, red and glowing and held open too wide, pupils slitted like a cat’s.

My heart stuttered and then took off like a hummingbird. I took a single step back.

Solas said he couldn't get in here.

Solas was _useless._

Its - who the fuck was I kidding, I knew exactly _who_ this was - legs were stiff and ears pointed toward me, but his tail and posture were relaxed. His fur wasn’t bristled, teeth not bared, and he wasn’t growling. A little dominant, but not aggressive.

That didn’t change the fact that a “wolf” the size of a bus was six feet from my face and staring me down. I could see the crack-like grooves on his nose. I could see whiskers poking out through individual hairs on his muzzle.

I could see that same face surrounded by lush forest, with two glowing red eyes and wisps coming off of him because I’d made him angry.

He stopped and stood looking at me, unmoving. 

It was a tail-wag that did it. It was tiny, no more than a twitch really, just enough to catch my eye, but a wolf’s every move has meaning. If this form really was a wolf, then that would have been like a human smiling at you.

Confusion started to mix with my fear.

And then he laid down.

The Dread Wolf, creator of the Veil and vanquisher of gods laid down in front of me, crossed his paws, and stared at me.

My throat worked. I swallowed.

“A- are you,” I stuttered dryly, then cleared my throat and tried again, “are you angry?” I asked.

He didn’t answer.

“It’s just, ehm, your eyes,” I said. “They’re red. And you have this whole. . ." I gestured at him vaguely, "smoke thing going on, and your fur isn’t like fur, it’s like someone punched a hole in the sky and doesn’t that mean you’re angry? 

“. . .If it helps, I didn’t take the mark on purpose. I’m fairly certain I didn’t take it at all, and to be honest I think getting it almost killed me. You know, if that makes you feel better.”

One of his ears twitched as if a bug hand landed on it.

“. . . Are you going to, you know. . . bite my arm off?”

He curled a lip.

The only reason I could see that he would sit in silence like this while I rambled on was a fairly effective interrogation technique when in the right hands. If you know someone is afraid of you, you just stare and wait like you’re expecting something. The person on the other side of the table will spill all kinds of shit hoping to find the thing you want to hear, and you get a flood of information without lifting a finger. He’d probably done it a million times.

The idea that he was using it on _me_ pissed me right off before I could think any better of it. It was better than terror, anyway.

“So. . . the guy you walked through. Is he ok?” I asked. My voice was an entirely different creature than it had been a moment before.

He canted his head at me ever so slightly.

“Are you playing dumb?” I snapped.

I regretted it instantly, but he answered before I could shrink in on myself and try to think of some sort of tribute or something that might keep me from being eaten.

[He is fine. I sent him away.] The voice was nothing like the grating sensation made by the words of the blonde creature I’d met here. It was clear, but it still wasn’t quite a sound.

 _'How wonderfully vague,'_ I thought drily. “Then I shouldn't be here. He would have woken himself up and gone straight to my room to wake me.”

[He has been assured of your well-being.]

“And. . . he believed you. The twelve-foot-tall, arguably - and I mean this with the utmost respect - demonic-looking Fade wolf. Was that before or after you stepped through him like he was a cloud?”

I was not nearly as afraid of him as I should be. But I realized with a start that it was because I wasn’t actually afraid of him at all. I mean, I was a _little,_ because I wasn’t a complete idiot, but this felt. . . _he_ felt. . . familiar. Familiar like muscle memory or a routine or a childhood friend. It was the same sensation as when my hand had gripped Cullen’s sword.

Again, I remembered the dream.

[I to-]

“Are your eyes always red?” I asked. 

I _interrupted the Dread fucking Wolf._ And under the entirely rational fear, it felt no different than having interrupted a brother or an old friend. I felt like something hot and cold was crawling all over my skin. “And are there always six of them?”

He blinked lazily. [I can take whatever form I choose.]

“. . . Rrriight,” I said. “I know that. But if you happen to know why I’m asking then you know exactly _what_ I’m asking, and since I have no idea who I am and all I have to go off of is what will be a _really_ disturbing dream if it turns out to be true, I’d appreciate it if you would just. . . throw me a bone here. So to speak. Its been a really long few days.”

When he didn’t immediately answer, I went on.

“I know who you are,” I said, careful that my tone made clear that that wasn’t a threat or challenge or accusation. “Who you really are, not that garbage the dalish pass down. I know what you did in elvhenan, I know what happened to you, and I know what you want to do to the world. I know the Breach is. . . well, at least partially your fault.” 

Risky phrasing? Yes.

“I met a demon here earlier today disguised as something else, and I could tell. It felt off. You don’t feel off, and given that I have your mark, I have no trouble believing you’d come after it. I have no trouble believing you _wouldn’t_ come after it either, but. . . here you are. 

“I had dream about you,” I said slowly, “and I think it might not have been a dream. But given who you are, I don’t really want to throw any clues at you that might help you lie to me, so. . . if you know what I’m asking, then you _know what I’m asking._ If you do, please just show me, because I could really use just _one thing_ being even the least bit easy. My head might explode otherwise, and then where will we all be?”

Again, he regarded me. He closed his eyes in a long blink.

When he opened them, there were only two. And they were stormcloud blue.

I put a hand to my mouth and made a noise somewhere between a gasp and a sob. It felt like my chest was going to cave in.

_Someone knew me._

But. . . wait. If he. . . then that meant I. . . .

“Oh,” I breathed. “Oh, my god.” I looked up at him, shock on my face. “I’m not an elf, am I?” I asked numbly.

[No, Little One,] he said gently. [You are not. You are of the People.]

My vision went blurry, but cleared when I blinked and two tears spilled over. I banished further ones and sat down heavily. We were in the woods, the same woods from my dream. A butterfly with lace wings and what looked like cut gemstones on them bobbed past my face. When had he. . . ?

“Well that’s. . .” I laughed, a little manic. “That’s a kick in the teeth, right there.”

Arlathan had fallen somewhere between 4,000 and 8,000 years ago, and I had not gotten the sense in my dream that there was a war going on in the world around us. It had been before Fen'harel's rebellion had begun.

But that couldn't be right. Because I _felt_ what I was and where I had come from, and I was not elvhen and it was not this world.

I’d never found doubt particularly helpful, denial even less so. The truth was the truth, and flailing around refusing to believe it had yet to make it change for anyone, anywhere. Sometimes your world gets rocked. It’s an occupational hazard of being alive.

At least now I knew how I’d left the women feeling tonight. I wanted to punch myself in the teeth on their behalf.

But better in the end to skip all the ‘I can’t believe this’ crap and go right to the part where you deal with reality. It saves a lot of time. 

I put my head in my hands.

[Do you remember me?] he asked. His voice was so _gentle._

I took a shaky breath. I took my head out of my hands. I forced back another wave of tears and cleared my throat against them. His tone was so kind that I bit back a sarcastic reply; when I did speak, my voice wasn’t steady, but it was clear. “No. I had a dream about you, while I was passed out after closing the Rift below the Breach, and you. . . you feel familiar. Like family, like I know you and I always have. But I don’t remember anything.”

Fen’harel regarded me for a long moment, then, with a quiet sigh, slowly got to his feet and padded over to me. He moved with more grace than any canine, or any creature so large should be able to. He was massive. Too much fear had gone out of me, but I was tense; Fen'harel cared about me and he meant me no harm. I could feel it in the air like a physical thing. But he had cared about a man named Falassan, too. He had been Fen'harel's friend for a long, long time, and his agent when he woke to the modern world. Felassan had been his friend, and Fen'harel had still killed him because on one of his missions, he had started to see mortals as real people. He had begun to see the value of the "tranquil," the stunted weeds, and that thinking was too dangerous to allow. Fen'harel had murdered him mid-sentence, from behind. That Felassan had known it would be how the conversation ended didn't change anything but how peacefully he was able to greet death.

When Fen'harel reached me, he curled around my form with his side pressed to my back. When he settled, he was about a third smaller than he had been - still huge, but small enough to bend himself around me. 

I closed my eyes and I couldn't fight it; something in me snapped and I let my head rest against him. I buried my fingers in his fur as if both were as natural as the sun in the sky. I _knew_ him, and this was like getting to touch someone when you had been alone for months, years. It was like seeing cherished family when you had been in a land of strangers.

I didn’t force the tears down this time. They were silent and soft and I was so _tired._

“What am I?” I whispered roughly.

Fen’harel only tucked his massive nose under my bent knees and huffed a deep breath. I realized he felt just as comforted by this as I did. It was. . . odd. No, it was surreal.

[You are Nuaelan,] he rumbled quietly. [Nua. ‘Little One’ was something you were called long ago, before you chose your name.]

A quiet settled between us. It swirled through the air as if it had a life of its own, and maybe I had been elvhen - _was_ elvhen - because I knew I should be talking to him, asking him questions, getting answers, making plans. But though part of my mind knew ‘hurry, morning coming, window closing,’ the rest of me felt there was no hurry in all the world. That I should enjoy my. . . friend. It was odd even thinking the word.

“Does it mean something?” I asked. “Nuaelan. Like, I know Fen'harel is Dread Wolf.” Abelas is Sorrow, Elgar'nan is Spirit of Vengeance. . . .

I felt a smile from him as clearly as if it were on my own face, even though it couldn't physically be on his.

[The day you chose it, you nearly died. You were too bold, too brash, and overconfident. You knew your body well, but no one is immune to accidents. 

[You fell. Into a rather dangerous river. By the time I fished you out, I was out of breath and as soaked through as you were. I tried to be cross and scolding, but by then you and I were just starting to become close, and I could not summon it.

[We were both silent for a long while as we gasped for air. Out of breath and dripping wet, I laughed dryly and remarked, “Nuaelan.” It means “You are trouble,” or "the elvhen embodiment of trouble."]

I snorted a laugh. “My name means ‘Trouble?’”

[It was well-informed, and it proved a rather apt decision as the millennia passed.]

I felt suddenly light-headed.

[What was your dream about, Nua?] He asked quietly.

He hoped the sound of my name in a familiar ‘voice’ might jog something or at least bring me some sort of comfort. It didn’t.

I cleared my throat to bring my head back to the conversation. I made a thoughtful noise. When I spoke, my voice was low and silken. Different than it had been so far, but familiar. It was an Old sound. “We were running through the woods. Your woods. Your home. I got the sense that you were like a chaperone, but you didn’t like me. No one did. But I liked you, and I wanted your attention so badly that I baited you and annoyed you until you lost your temper and started chasing me. We wrestled, and I got you so angry that your eyes glowed red and your fur turned to swirling ink. That’s why I thought you were mad earlier. And much bigger than in my dream, by the way. When it was over, I asked you something about naming me and it annoyed you so much that you just left.

“. . . I loved you,” I said absently, my mind thousands of years away. “I felt like. . .when I was with you, maybe I knew what it was like to have a family.” I huffed a laugh. “And you couldn’t _stand_ me. There was something about me that you loathed on principal.

“. . . So why did you spend time with me?” I asked. “I got the impression that it happened often, that I basically lived with you.”

He sighed. [It is. . . complicated, and our history was a long one, even by the standards of our people.]

There went the idea that I was "only" 4,000 - 8,000 years old. I felt like I was in a dream. Then I nearly laughed when I remembered that I basically was.

I felt a heartbreaking sort of relief from Fen'harel that he could say “our people” to someone, and a thrum of disorientation to be so casually lumped in with him, with his lost world, with the mission he so worshiped.

[But eventually I pulled my head out of my backside and allowed myself to see you for who you were instead of what you were,] he said archly. [That was when we became friends. You were more insufferable afterwards.] He sounded fond when he said it.

“And we were never lovers?” It wasn’t really a question, but then, I didn’t really remember. I knew he’d had a love of taking worthy women to bed, but I had no idea what I looked like. I was more embarrassed by the question than I should have been, though. Knowing Cassandra and the others was one thing, but this. . . this was someone who knew me, too. It was a blind spot, and it caught me off guard.

[No. We became family, but we never laid together.]

“Was I unattractive by elvhen standards?” I asked, confused.

He laughed outright, and it rumbled all through his ribcage and into me. It was so beautiful it made my chest hurt.

[You have not lost your talent for subtlety, I see.]

I didn’t get the feeling that I _was_ bad at it, not when I didn’t want to be.

[You were quite beautiful. Most elvhen were by today’s standards, but you stood out even so. I would not take you to bed in the beginning, though I will admit that part of me wanted to, and by the end you were too valuable to me. You were more than a lover could have been.]

I turned all of this over in my mind.

“You said _what_ I was. In my dream, there were flashes of a lot of other things, and one of them was this feeling that everyone hated me because of what I was, as if I were a different creature than them. Not all elvhen were born, right? Some were made from spirits? Even if I was that way, I shouldn’t have been so. . . disgusting.”

[You were spirit-made, yes. In the beginning, long before my time, all elvhen were.]

I waited for more, but it didn’t come. “. . . Please tell me you’re not going to do that thing where you pretend to answer a question when really you haven't said anything at all. I’ll take a ‘piss off I’m not answering’ over that any day.”

I felt amusement. [Your situation was unique. The specifics of it. . . I think that is something best left for you to remember on your own.]

“Ah. Right. Have you always been this infuriating?”

[No,] he said, glib. [I used to be much worse.]

I huffed a laugh despite myself. I was surprised what a relief it was.

A thought occurred to me and I sobered. Carefully, I asked, “Will I see you again after tonight? Before the Breach is closed. I assume you’ll want to recruit me after that or. . . something.” At least I had guaranteed safety until then. The mark in my hand was the only way to fix his most recent mistake, his miscalculation, and he wasn't strong enough to take it back yet.

He paused, and I felt him deciding which part to reply to.

[I would like to take your Solas' place as your guardian, should you have no objections.]

I scowled. “He is not _my_ anything. But yes, I would like that." Regret it? Probably. But with Fen'harel, at least I knew what his secret was. "I was starting to wonder how I was going to figure out how to use magic without telling anyone I’d never, well, that I didn’t _remember_ ever having any before.” I less than reassured that he both knew Solas' name and that he had been acting as my "guardian." Had the two sat down for tea in the instant it took Solas to disappear? If it had been anyone but Fen'harel. . . .

[I would enjoy helping you,] he said warmly. I felt a pang in my chest as I tried to reconcile the Fen'harel before me with the Fen'harel I was, wisely, wary of. [But this Solas, I take it you do not care for him?]

My scowl deepened, but I said nothing. Somehow, I knew that I didn’t need to. I figured it was related to how I seemed to feel what he was feeling.

I froze, remembering--

But I was distracted when what I felt from him constricted until all I could detect was his presence, as if he were pulling in on himself. I waited, but he said nothing, so I tried to joke.

“Like I could stop you, anyway,” I muttered. "'Objections,'" I scoffed pathetically.

I felt him grin. [No. But I would respect your wishes.]

“So long as you felt like it, you mean?” I purred.

I felt him smile, and it was a fond thing. His feeling bloomed again and I felt an overwhelming wash of relief. [I would like to watch over you. I may be of help with your mission, as well.]

“You don’t need to justify it,” I mumbled. “I feel like. . . This is going to sound ridiculous because I only have memories going back a week or so now, but I feel like this is. . . like I haven’t felt this safe in a long time. Like I’ve _missed_ you, as if a hand or a foot, only I didn’t realize it until now. If you weren’t so damned sneaky, I’d ask you to just join the Inquisition under a false identity so I wouldn't feel like such an alien.” Even though I knew it would be catastrophically stupid to have him there.

[We need to figure out why you are being hunted first. This will be a safe place for you, so memorize it tonight, take it in, and keep it in your mind as you go to sleep each night. You will be brought straight here. If there is a time I cannot be with you, you will still be out of danger here.]

"What if I get knocked out or something?"

[I have friends in the Fade. I will ask them to watch for you and guide you here, should you need it.]

“Thank you,” I said sincerely. "And thank them."

I went absent, my mind on the emotions I had clearly felt from Solas in the waking world. “How are elvhen different from elves?” I asked conversationally.

He hummed. [We enjoyed touch.] He picked his head up and dropped it in my lap. The weight of it collapsed my legs, and he leaned into my torso with a happy sigh. I scratched his muzzle as if doing so were automatic. [Among those we were close to. Much moreso than any modern race. We were often touching one another in some small way.] I heard a smile in his voice.

[You have no doubt found your senses far superior to others’.]

“I figured it was an elf thing. It isn’t?”

[No. It is not,] he said, an dark undercurrent entering his voice. [Modern elves are little more than shrunken humans with pointed ears. They have lost touch with everything that should be most important to them, with themselves and the world around them.] Sorrow, regret, self-recrimination, determination. . . .

[We have greater tolerance for extreme temperatures. You will find shoes utterly useless and patently uncomfortable in all but the most extreme conditions. When we encountered them in our time, we simply used spells to augment our natural resistance.]

“Tiny foot prisons,” I said. “I put on boots and they felt like tiny foot prisons.”

[An accurate enough comparison,] he said, amused again, at least on the surface. The sorrow underneath everything had not ceased since he'd come here. [Your strength and endurance will seem impossible to the people of this age. Your heart and lungs are slightly larger, and your heart beats a little more quickly. Your body will require only a fraction of the food theirs does, though you can eat more, within reason. You will need to relieve yourself far less, as a consequence,] he said with clinical detachment. [Our bodies are more efficient, so you can also carry yourself longer without food, and to a slightly lesser extent water. 

[You in particular will find that you do not need much sleep, and your physical abilities were heightened beyond those of other elvhen. Not drastically, but enough to provide an edge when one was needed.] He sounded. . . proud? Smug? I wasn’t sure which.

[You have also noticed the physiological differences, I assume? Between you and other elves?]

I looked down. Shifted a little. “. . . I saw an elf today, when I woke up. He looked. . . I felt like an asshole. Looking at him made me feel. . . .”

[Ill?]

“Yes!” I cried in relief. “Like there was something horribly wrong with him, like he shouldn’t even. . . . Like he. . . .” I trailed off, the slimey trickle of horrifying recognition moving in me. ‘Like he shouldn’t even exist,’ I was going to say.

Was this how Fen’harel saw them? Was this why it was acceptable to him to do what he planned? Was it is first straw? His last?

Even picturing the elven man made my skin crawl. I knew, I _knew_ there was nothing wrong with him. I knew he was whole. He was a person with his own thoughts and feelings and dreams. He was real, just as real as I was. I _knew_ that. But it didn’t quiet the part of me that screamed that something like him, something so malformed and broken should not be allowed to suffer through its own existence. I knew the man wouldn’t see it that way. I knew I _shouldn’t_ see it that way.

I wasn’t in the habit of fighting pieces of myself, especially not ones I disagreed with. All that accomplished was creating a schism within yourself and ultimately feeding the thing you were trying to avoid or deny in the first place. I embraced my bad feelings, my shameful thoughts. I treated them gently and waited to find what they had to teach me or tell me. Once they had done that, most of the time they disappeared on their own as if they had never been there at all. But this. . . I didn’t know how to _begin_ trying to process this. I would need time alone to really look at it.

I was afraid I wouldn’t like what I found.

[I understand,] Fen'harel rumbled quietly. He sounded more saddened by it than I was. But he’d had a year travel among them, and he considered himself responsible for their fall. If I’d had to think I was responsible for a world of creatures like that man I’d seen. . . .

I shuddered involuntarily.

“What else?” I asked, eager to change the subject.

He paused just long enough to let me know he was choosing to follow my lead. [We are taller, broader, and more muscular. Curiously, our eyes are less vivid - except in the case of you and the Evanuris. They altered their appearances to seem like more than they were. Others did as well, of course, but it was not a common practice. Our ears are longer and more pointed, and _incredibly_ sensitive to physical stimuli. We tend to be more graceful, though whether that is more from culture or physiology I could not say.]

I was silently ticking things off.

Awake for a year. Taller, broader, more muscular. Larger ears, more subdued eye color. Incredibly sensitive to magic and the Fade. Abject frustration with the bull-headed ignorance of the dalish, particularly as relates to the history of their ancestors.

“Why can I feel what you feel?” I asked lightly. “It’s so vivid I haven’t even questioned it. It’s like every part of me is as used to it as it is to breathing. Is that elvhen, too?”

He paused only an instant, and I felt an odd swirl from him, as if our connection or whatever it was was suddenly flooded with too much information to process at once.

[We call it Ara’lin. Loosely translated, our “self” or “being." At its most basic, it is an outward manifestation of our mana, or our connection to the Fade, which we called Elgar’vhenasan, literally "the place of the spirits' home." It allowed us to connect to one another in a way no mortal today could understand.]

And that was the last item I needed, along with his unusual reaction to the question.

“Fen’harel,” I began, my voice unnaturally light, “how many agents do you already have in Haven?” I knew he'd know where I was going with this. But then, I suspected he had known at least since I had asked about the Ara'lins. Point to my question aside, I knew the Inquisition would be crawling with his agents soon if it wasn’t already. He wouldn’t be without ears in the organization that was cleaning up his mess and setting the stage for another attempt to burn the world - _the right way._ I rolled my eyes at the thought.

[Enough to know that should I wish to place more, they should not be elves.]

He made a joke of it. Clever. But he also wasn't hiding the fact that he was totally unsurprised at the turn in conversation, and knew exactly what was coming next. I wondered why he hadn't tried to steer me away from it in the beginning. God knew there were plenty of other things to talk about.

“And Solas is one of them.” It wasn’t a question. “He is elvhen.”

He huffed a laugh. [Yes to the latter, no to the former. He is no agent of mine, but I know of him. I have spent a good deal of time searching for any elvhen who may have survived over the millennia.]

I fought the urge to comfort him at the sorrow I heard in his voice. I had to clench my hands into loose fists to avoid doing so, in fact.

I sighed heavily. That would explain Solas' interest in me, why he had volunteered to teach me Common, why he kept trying to speak to me in elvhen, and why he kept looking at me like he was waiting for. . . ah. Recognition.

I felt a little like an asshole. I felt a little bad for him. And I detested it. I also didn’t want to believe Fen’harel when he said Solas wasn’t one of his, but he had practically gone out of his way to shout the truth of it in his “Ara’lin.” Which was suspicious enough on its own.

“And how long will he remain a free agent?”

[Solas' path is his own until the Breach is closed. You know of my plans?]

I nodded, knowing he’d feel it, and then feeling the smallest bit exposed. Elvhenan was supposed to have been a place that would have made the Game look like toddlers squabbling over toys. How had anyone lied with this cloud around them?

[You do not approve.]

“. . . We’re talking about this, Fen’harel. But we’re not talking about it tonight. I don’t understand how I can be elvhen, because I _feel_ the world I was from, and it was not full of magic and pointed ears. I was a human there.”

I felt his jolt of surprise.

“But what you’re saying makes too much sense and. . .” I shook my head. “I _know_ you.” My fingers buried themselves in the fur of his neck and worked their way down to the skin, kneading the hard muscles underneath. His eyes slid closed and he leaned into the touch subtly.

 _’You’re so lonely,’_ I thought, and I felt that same pain, that same urge to fix it as I had with Josephine. Perhaps I had once been a spirit of Compassion.

“Anyway, its been a long goddamned day, and that will be a very complicated conversation and right now - I know you’ll understand this - I just want to appreciate the fact that I’m not quite as alone as I thought. That somewhere in the world, I have a friend. That I have family,” I finished softly.

His agreement hummed through the air, and another long, full silence lapsed between us.

“You said you searched for elvhen,” I said eventually. “You didn’t find me?”

It was a while before he answered. [No. I did not.] His voice was unusually quiet, and I got the impression that that was a wound and I shouldn’t poke it.

He shifted a little around me as if resettling himself. [You said you dreamed of more than the chase through my home. What else?]

“A lot of things. Mythal said something about wild magic, in the past and as Flemeth. Those people hated me for what I was, I loved you before I could even imagine what love was, something about being “made,” literally. I was groomed and trained for something, taught all kinds of skills and kept in seclusion for a long time. I was. . . stunted though, somehow, on the inside. Perfectly tuned, but more like a machine than a person. I was all goal and no. . . heart.”

A memory whispered in my mind and my brows drew together. The blonde in the Fade had told me something about that. ‘Find your heart,’ or something. ‘Not the details.’ What had its words been? Come to think of it, it had called me Little One, too. Had it been elvhen? Had it known me? I remembered the boil of anger and fear and dread that it had summoned in me. Strangers didn’t elicit those feelings.

“Wars,” I said, far away. “I fought with you, didn’t I? During your rebellion. I was feral, wild and brutally deadly and I loved it. There was blood, literal fields of it, temple floors coated in it, but not from my hand, I don’t think. And. . . I wasn’t just a soldier, was I?”

[No. You were not.]

“There was victory, voices shouting at you about betrayal, a pair of eyes that made me afraid, something about an experiment, an elvhen word I don’t know, and this sense that I was. . . your partner, almost, in the war. That I was the only one you could really count on in the end, that I did something for you that the others couldn’t. I let you hold on to yourself."

It struck me as if just becoming real: we _had_ been close. No, Close. Close in a way most people will go their whole lives without finding. It ached a little, and I wasn't sure why.

“We were fiercely loyal to you. I knew that if you had to, you would have killed even me in an instant for the cause, and I would. . . I would have gone gladly, because we all believed in it just as strongly as you did, and we had that much faith in you, in your ability to know what had to be done.” What an odd thought; I couldn’t say that I would so readily give myself over like that now.

[We succeeded because of the efforts and passion of many. We fought on different fronts, and not always with weapons and magic. It was not my rebellion alone; I was only one of many. History has simply painted my involvement with more credit than I deserve.]

I hummed. He believed what he was saying. Mostly. But the part of him that didn't was made up of less arrogance than most people would assume. “That’s news to me. I don’t imagine having a genius master strategist god at our helm really hurt the cause, though.”

[You know I am not a god, don’t you?]

“Yeah, sure. But god-like was probably still a good way to describe what you could do. You were a hell of a lot smarter and more powerful than most, weren’t you?”

[. . . You truly do not remember, do you?]

“No, I do. Yeah, I remember everything, I’ve just been playing an elaborate prank. I figured you’d get a kick out of it.”

He wormed his jaw under my legs and held them between his teeth, then bit down just enough to make his point.

So I leaned in and bit him on the ear.

He pulled back and licked me, from floor to crown. With a tongue that was literally almost as big as I was.

“. . . Are we sure I didn’t hate you?” I asked as I held slobber-soaked clothing away from my skin with a soured look on my face. “I think I might have hated you.”

He looked at me. His eyes were oddly human and I saw amusement first, but then a sudden mournful look in them, a sorrow. [Nuaelan, you can change your clothing. You are in the Fade.] It was like he was reminding a thirsty person that they could have a drink of the water that was in front of them.

“Well sure I can,” I snarked back, suddenly feeling uneasy, “but--”

I went very, very still. 

“. . . That’s just something all mages can do, right? Little, simple things like that?”

He only looked back, that same sorrow in his eyes. The answer was written there.

My own eyes slid closed and my head fell back against him. Suddenly I was bone tired. Not fighting your reality when it changes around you took a good deal of energy, and I wasn’t sure I had any left.

He waited for me to speak. I knew he would wait as long as it took.

"When will I wake up?" I asked, allowing myself a detour, if only for a moment.

[I cannot say. But there is a feeling which comes before you wake that you will quickly learn to recognize. Similar to feelings of hunger or thirst or the need to relieve yourself. It is a pressure, or a tug.]

I nodded numbly. Vacation time over.

“Being immortal gave us," and how surreal was it to lump myself into _that,_ "a lot of time to master pretty much anything we wanted, I bet. But as talented as anyone could be, you either were a somniari or you weren’t. The nobility structure was based on that, right?” Like Tevinter. More power equaled greater status.

I felt his assent.

I began fidgeting with my fingers. Something to do to take some of the pressure off what I was feeling, any tiny distraction, some other place for my focus and my senses.

“So. . . let me see if I’ve been paying attention. I'm apparently extra pretty, have enhanced senses and physical abilities, and am somehow inherently different than others. I haven’t been evaluated for combat yet but somehow I know that I can fight, and I would have said that even without the dream.

“I’m not nervous about people waiting on me. That means I’m used to it. I held the attention of people who thought I was some sort of holy prophet like it was old hat. I feel no real deference toward people who should be authority figures. Now apparently I'm a somniari. I'm not even going to ask you if I'm leaving anything out, because frankly right now I don't want to know if I am. 

“Fen'harel, _what was I?"_

He heaved a great sigh and raised his head to look me in the eyes.

[You were not like other elvhen, no. You were trained from your first day in the world, without pause. You were a prodigy, you had talent and skill and drive bourne into your every cell, and you were _worked_ to master everything put in front of you. Combat and magic, grace and bearing, art and trades. Conversation, etiquette, charm, seduction.]

“Was I nobility?” I had to force the question out around the threat of bile. I did not have a kind opinion of elvhen nobility.

[No, you were not. Most of the world never even knew of you, and when our war began in earnest, you saw too much value in remaining a ghost, a phantom. A rumor to frighten our enemies. It. . .] he sounded. . . uncomfortable, [was not just your training, however. It was your. . . you could call it breeding. But Nua, I must ask you not to continue questioning me about this. I truly think it best for you to wait for this piece to come back to you on your own, difficult as it must be. I will not change my mind.] He sounded apologetic, but I knew he meant it, and there was nothing I could say to convince him otherwise.

I huffed a breath. “So in other words, I meet probably literally the only person who can tell me who I am, and he won’t tell me who I am.” 

[A poetic irony, perhaps.]

“Yeah see you say that, but all I hear is a pretty version of ‘I’m a stupid jackass and I secretly hate you.’”

He sighed. I would have told him I didn’t mean it, but I knew he knew that. He was perhaps every bit as frustrated about my situation as I was. More, maybe, since he knew everything I didn’t. But knowing that he felt I needed to wait to remember on my own made me dread what was waiting for me in my memories.

“Well,” I uttered, near-silent.

An idea occurred to me, and I broke the silence that had settled over us again. “Want to make it up to me?” I asked playfully.

[What did you have in mind?] Curious and a little wary. Smart man.

A grin split my face. “A field trip. I have some people I’d like to say hello to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What I learned in this chapter: there is literally no way to refer to a blade that belongs to a man without making it sound like you're talking about his penis.
> 
> Note: I have like. . . 55% confidence in my creation of elvhen words.
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> 5/28/17: Dialogue and interaction corrected for the fact that my poor, poor Felassan passed _before_ Inquisition. I may be grumpcat about this for some time, I was really looking forward to having him in the ranks.  >_> The patch job might be a little sloppy - if I missed something or the flow is off, feel free to tell me.  
> 6/19/17: Lore change. Increased appetite -> decreased appetite. Made sense that an immortal species would have slower metabolic function.


	10. Rounds

[Imagine him,] Fen’harel had said. [Hold him in your mind. Feel the impression he gives you, how he sits in your mind and heart. Recall a scent he gives off, the color of his eyes, the weave of his clothes, any details which stayed with you, however small. Because he is a spirit, focus on your emotional impression of him, how he makes you feel. Hold these things until you find the place within yourself where he lives, and so the part of him that is a part of you.]

I held those things, but there was clutter around them.

[Don’t fight what you are, Nua,] he said, and I wondered how much a somniari with his experience could see in the Fade, or how much of my experience as a person ended up showing in this "ara'lin." [Don’t argue with what you can do. You are tying your own feet, and this is as much a part of you as they are. You were born a Dreamer the same as you were born an elf.]

Except I _wasn’t_ born an elf. . . . Except I was.

I gave a frustrated huff but did as I was told. I let my resentment dissolve. I let my fear bloom and scatter on the wind. I took the sustenance from my anger and bitterness and let them harden until they crystallised and crumbled away, leaving only purpose and strength behind. In the end, all that was left was the piece of Cole that was me and the piece of me that was him - his own universe inside of me.

[Feel the Fade around you.] His voice quieted to a smooth rumble. [It is a canvas. It breathes. It moves. It is as alive as you or I. It is air in your lungs. It reaches into your flesh and touches the deepest parts of you. It is a partnership; as it is a piece of you, so are you a piece of it. Hold on to the part of you that is Cole and allow the Fade to shape what you feel and thus, reflect what you are. Let it become this part of you.]

Something in my chest swelled with beautifully painful familiarity, as though he was speaking a truth I had long given up on having acknowledged. I held the Fade and myself and the part of Cole within me. I breathed. I let myself expand until I was all around us, like the "air" that already felt like a part of me.

And then I _felt_ Cole. Unbidden, my eyes opened and turned to my left and there he was, crouched with his back to me, in his leathers and oversized hat, fiddling with something on the ground, it looked like. My breath caught in my throat. This was different than meeting Cassandra and the others. This was different than meeting the Dread Wolf.

“Pieces, patchwork, parts, for a purpose,” Cole muttered. “He tried so many times. Hurt and angry and alone, bitter, why won’t they _see?”_ Then louder, as he rose to his feet and turned toward me, “You’re like me.  But. . . not."

"You know me," he said as if confused.  Then he gasped. "You _remember_ me.  You know what am, everything I did, how he died.  But I don't know you. I don't know those things."  He paused.  "You don't make sense. There are too many voices.  Bright like a spirit.  But not.

"It was him they hated, not you, not really.  Fears and mistakes and ideas. You always tried so hard to be what he wanted, what they wanted. Sometimes you didn’t even exist. . . . But then he took it away. Trying, always trying, and so _angry._   It hurts, all around him it hurts.  But he won't let it heal."

Cole didn’t even glance at Fen’harel, who had - considerately, I thought - shrunk so his head sat level with mine. The black was slowly leeching from his fur, leaving white behind.

“Hello, Cole,” I said softly.

“You like me,” he said, surprised and confused. "The woman who is not a woman and the man who is not a wolf.  He does not know.  Too loud, too bright, too old, you are the song that was sung before, swept off and carried here. Sleeping.  And you are hunted,” he said.

I nodded. “It seems that way. Do you know why I came to find you tonight?”

He canted his head at me. “You want me to help. You want me to help you help.”

I smiled and nodded again. “You would find us eventually for that reason, but I’d like you to come now, if you can. I think we can help more people if you come now.”

I paused, and I felt like he was listening to something. He probably was.

“Yes. You want me to sort them. To hear what they hide.  But. . . can you trust me?  I don't know what I am yet."

"That can be the nice thing, Cole.  You are what you are, even before you discover the words for it."

". . . You know what I am."

"I know what I  _think_ you are.  Everyone outside of you will have their own opinion on that, if they bother to make one.  You've seen that, haven't you?"

"Yes.  Ghost, amombination, monster, demon, spirit, liar, murderer, merciful.  They all thought something.  But only one wanted to be my friend.  Like you."

"Rhys?" I asked.  "I might know where he and Evangeline are, Cole.  Or if not, where they will be soon.  He hasn't forgotten you, you know.  I have friends who can find them.  Make sure they're safe."

“He remembers me?  . . . He wants to forgive me?” He sounded confused again. “No, that’s not right. They don’t like me.”

I smiled softly. “You know what people are like when they’re afraid, right? Or when something changes too fast, or surprises them? Anger comes up, it’s how we protect ourselves. When people are angry, they don’t think like themselves. But when the anger goes away, they come back. Rhys was like that for a little while, but I think he understands better now. Or if he doesn't, he will soon."

He considered this. “But. . . you don't do that. Hard as you are, hardened like a stone, always in sight, always watching, line on the level of the eyes, controlled so tight and in hand, afraid to look away, 'I will make a mistake and they will all hate me. They will stop pretending,'" he said as if a litany. Then, back to normal, "But they aren't pretending."

I felt a shard of painful familiarity behind my sternum, and was given another splinter of the picture of what I had been before this.

I felt Fen'harel's interest, and what was almost like scrutiny.

"I don’t want to hurt them,” Cole said eventually.

“Who, Rhys and Evangeline? I want him to have the chance to talk to you, Cole, but if that isn’t what you want, you don’t have to have anything to do with them. I can send soldiers or scouts or Leliana's agents.”

“That. . . could work. They don’t like me,” he said again.

“They were afraid of you,” I said. I felt like I was finishing a thought for him. "Confused.  They didn't understand."

“Yes. Monster, why did he lie, what did we help him do? So many dead, so many things gone wrong. Running, fleeing, must get to where they can’t find us, because of him, why didn't we realise?  But now, Evangeline is more like me and they wonder.”

“Do you know where I am, Cole? In the other world? Where to go?”

“Yes. Haven. So much hurt in Haven. Hearts halting, holding, fear and hate and hope. They hope because of you.”

I smiled, a small thing. It was for his benefit. “I intend to do my best.”

“Yes,” he said speculatively. “You will. But there are so many secrets.”

His voice firmed as he decided. “I will find you tomorrow, when you wake up.”

“Thank you, Cole,” I said emphatically.

“. . . You’re so much like me,” he repeated. “And you understand. I make sense, but they don’t. Twisted and tangled, they don’t know what words are. Feelings lost and loose, hidden like secrets tucked away. Words without thoughts, too much of nothing and everything they talk, but they don’t say anything. They don’t see anything.  You think it's on purpose, but it's not.  They're not like you.”

One side of my lips quirked. I thought people did their best, mostly. But suddenly I had the urge to be done with the conversation, and I didn’t think I had the energy to look at why. He was probably already bringing out a truth I was afraid to look at. Which, given that I didn't even remember myself, said a lot about human's - er, people's dedication to avoiding problems.

“But you see,” he said.  "You charge, you don't dance."

“. . . Wow. That really is weird,” I said with a huff of a laugh. But I couldn’t wait to get used to it. How much better it must be than having to say everything out loud, how much more clear.

“Yes. Words are hard. Sharp and blunt and broken, not enough and too much. No one else likes it when I hear what they don't say,” he said mournfully.

I laughed despite myself. “Maybe you and I can be good company, then.”

[You will enjoy elvhen,] Fen'harel rumbled in a satisfied and certain sort of way.

“Friend, she wants a friend, someone who makes sense,” Cole muttered to himself. “Yes. The ones who call themselves Anders. They are broken now, but you can help. Can I come with you?”

It would be Justice or Vengeance here in the Fade. Having a spirit with me might help. If Justice was old, he would know of Fen’harel, but if not. . . well. Cole was a spirit. At least he would speak the language.

I looked at Fen’harel. He was almost completely white now, and his eyes were a clearer shade of blue. I raised my brows at him but didn’t comment. “How do I bring someone along?”

[Compassion can follow on its own, just as I did, if it wishes.] he said, looking to Cole.

If he could be half so considerate of anyone else. But Spirits would always be family to him that no one else could be, especially now with the way the world was sundered. He would cling more tightly to any pieces of what he had lost.

“Yes. I will follow,” Cole declared.

I closed my eyes and thought of Anders. Four years had passed since he destroyed the Chantry in Kirkwall, and I had no idea how much he might have been changed since then. I held that much more tightly to him, and I tried to focus on the feel of his spirit instead of the specifics of his personality or body.

“Cats,” Cole said.

I opened my eyes and looked at him, brows up.

“He still likes cats. And he is close.”

I smiled. “Thank you, Cole,” I said and closed my eyes again.

Cats. Want and charm. Hunger, hurt, _anger,_ so much sorrow. But underneath everything, a bright spirit, warm like the sun and electric like a star and a shock of lightning. That was Anders. But he wasn’t just Anders. Justice was clear and sharp, a hard crystal of bright purpose. Vengeance was spikes and spines, bent shards of black and red, cutting anything that graced it.

The feeling was dissonant, so I tried again.

Anders and Vengeance. No Justice. This feeling came into sharp focus, and I felt a pang of sadness and worry.

Just as I had with Cole, I knew when Anders was there. I opened my eyes and looked in front of me.

He stood facing us as if waiting. Long moments of silence passed when we only looked at one another. The corrupted spirit in him grated, like shark skin brushing the wrong way, but deep down. It was how the demons had felt when they’d come after me. Now I knew why. Demons made Dreamers physically uncomfortable.

“Hello, Vengeance,” I said quietly.

“I do not know you,” it replied. Its voice was grating shards of sound. But it was the face it wore that hurt.

Anders was emaciated and weak, hunched over. His hair was long and as dirty as the rest of him. He had a thick beard that reached his chest. The blue glow of Justice was still there, but it was deeper and an angry color, like a swarm of wasps in light.

Cole began to fidget.

“No,” I replied calmly. “You don’t. My name is Nuaelan.” I didn’t know what to say from there. Would the spirit want help? Would it want to be separated? Apparently planning ahead was not a strong suit of mine.

There was only one thing I could see to try that _might_ not end in disaster. “May I speak to Anders?” I asked.

“Anders does not know you.”

“I know. But I know him, and I’m not angry about what he did. I don’t want to hurt him, and I don’t want to use him, and I don't want to punish him. I’m not good at talking to spirits yet - I think he might be able to understand what I have to say better. . . .I want to help.” I didn’t know why I said it, only that it felt like the right thing to say. It was like I was more myself when Cole was near, but also more like him.

Vengeance’s eyes darted to Cole. “She is right,” the young man said. "You can trust her."

Vengeance gave me another long look. Then it glanced at Fen’harel. Abruptly, the light faded from Anders.

He sucked in a breath and looked around as if he didn’t know where he was. I supposed he hadn’t been to the Fade as himself in so many years that it must be disorienting. I stifled the urge to reach a hand out and help him.

When his eyes settled on me, all he had to say was, “Well?” Hearing the familiar voice was a jolt, but not as much as hearing how broken and hoarse it was. I wondered how long it had been since he had used it. “Who are you? What do you want?” He was peevish.

Years on his own, maybe. Sick. Tired. Hunted, and hated by every side. . . . Anders wasn’t angry. Anders was wearing anger as a shield.

I closed my eyes. I felt what I wanted until it was so real in my mind I could reach out and touch it. When I opened my lids, it was to find a table from the Hanged Man spread with steaming tea.

“. . . You’re a Dreamer,” he said, some of the flint leaving his voice. "I met one, once."

I smiled gently. “Feynriel, yes," I said. “I have amnesia, but. . . well, me being one seems pretty hard to deny. This one here,” I tilted my head toward my left where Fen’harel stood just behind me, “is my chaperone while I figure out what I’m doing. You’re safe.”

"You know Feynriel?" Anders eyed Fen’harel. “It isn’t a spirit. Or a demon. But it’s powerful, and ancient. What is it?”

I smiled warmly. _“He_ is something as unique as a mage who joined with a spirit. And no, I don't know much more about the boy you helped than you do. Will you sit?” I gestured to the table.

He looked down at it, then back up at me. “If this is a trick. . . “

“Anders you’re an experienced mage,” I said. Fen’harel scoffed silently at his words and pushed down a spike of annoyance at him. “Am I a demon?”

“No,” he said, the tang of Vengeance entering his voice.

“I can’t find you in the waking world just because I found you here, right? And I wouldn’t make the most abhorrent person in the world Tranquil. Vengeance has no doubt told you how powerful my friend is, so if I wanted to trap you or hurt you. . . well I’d be an idiot for not having done it yet. I’m here because I have something you might want, and nothing else.”

Another long, considering pause. “You know I have no way to pay you, so what exactly are you after?” He moved toward the table and sat as he spoke. He didn’t touch the tea, but his eyes widened as its smell wafted toward him.

“How did you--? Who are you?” He asked, suspicion ripe in his tone again. It was the tea he used to drink in the Hanged Man.

“She knows,” Cole said gently. “She was there, she saw everything. She wants to help. She is a good person,” he added, tone certain. If ever there was a personal endorsement you could have. . . .

Anders glanced at Cole, and I saw no question in his eyes. Vengeance knew what Cole was, so Anders did, too. I could feel them somehow, so tightly woven into one another that I honestly didn’t know if they could be separated again. Odder still were things like tiny spots of black and brown in him, both rooted and moving. They were restless and angry. I realized with a start that I must be seeing the Blight. I couldn't think what else it would be.

To give myself time to put my thoughts together I picked up a cup of tea and gave it a sniff. It reminded me of clover and honey, but there was a rich spice underneath. The taste had a hint of some sort of blossom, and was much more sweet than I'd expected.

“My name is Nua. I don’t remember much about myself, but in place of those memories are memories of you and your world. I remember the Warden-Commander and her journey to stop the Fifth Blight. I remember her finding you, your Joining, the Architect, and your fight against the Mother. I remember Hawke and her family and everything that happened between their departure from Lothering and fleeing Kirkwall after Meredith was killed. I was there for Karl, for the making of your bomb, for the final confrontation. ‘There can be no peace.’ I was there with all of you, but. . . not my body. That’s why we’re sitting at a filthy table from Varric’s tavern. I figured it would be better than your clinic.

I paused and looked down at the cup in my hands, toyed at the ceramic with my thumbnails. “. . . She doesn’t hate you, you know. Hawke. She never did. She was just hurt and angry and confused, and she thought having you there for the last fight would be wrong. Divisive. She didn't think you should be rewarded. But she never hated you.”

I didn’t look up at him. It seemed like it would be invading a private moment. I didn’t know if he had seen or heard from Hawke since that day, but I doubted it. He probably thought everyone hated him.

He didn’t say anything. I took another sip of tea to be polite, then put my cup down and looked at him.

“I’m here because. . . I want to help you.” I wanted to tell him he was a good person at heart, but I wasn’t sure how he would take that. I wasn’t sure what I could say at all that might not turn him against me, because I didn’t know how much he hated himself. A person who hates himself will be a hard sell to accept help or healing. But as despised as he was, he would likely have too thick a wall to accept an offer of penance, either.

“You’re right,” Cole said. “He won’t like it. He isn't ready.”

I looked down at my hands.

“What are you talking about?” Anders asked. He still hadn’t touched the tea, and the edge hadn’t left his voice.

I sighed. “The fact that you won't like anything I have to say. Look, if you haven't heard of me yet, you will soon, and if you change your mind--" Will one of you be able to tell if he wants to talk to me?" I turned and asked Cole and Fen'harel.

"I'll listen," Cole said. "I'll hear."

I returned to Anders. "Either way, I want you to know that I won’t want anything in return.”

“You should tell him,” Cole said. “I think you can do it. Now now, maybe,” he said speculatively, "but you can."

“Tell him what?” I asked, turning over my shoulder to look at him.

“What you want to do.” His tone was light and weighted.

I went stiff. I knew what he was talking about.

“I. . . .” I looked at Anders again. Slowly, I said, “I want to try and separate you. I guess I have strange magic, different from any other kind, and I know two people who are experts on spirits and magic and the Fade and I think that between the three of us. . . we might be able to give you back to yourself.”

Anders went very, very still. I waited, but he gave no clue which way he was going to lean.

Finally, he rose from the table, turned and took a step away, and the glow of Vengeance returned. There were so many cracks in him that he was practically a lantern.

“You will leave,” Vengeance said, tone final.

“I can _help_ him, Vengeance. We can help him heal. Or I can help him work off--”

“No,” Cole interrupted. “We should go, he doesn’t want us. We should go, now.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could get a word out Anders and the table were gone. We were in a different part of the Fade, and Cole had vanished.

I spun on Fen’harel.

[You cannot help those who do not want it,] he said.

 _"You_ did that?" I asked. When he didn't answer, I was suddenly incenced. "Hypocrite!” I yelled. I opened my mouth to shout at him, but the words stuck in my throat. I felt like a petulant child, but I didn’t care.

I could give no admonition to Fen’harel that he wouldn’t have given himself a hundred times, and if I tried, all I would do was erect a wall that I would desperately need to tear down later on. So I closed my lips. I clenched my fists, I turned away, and I took breaths until I was under control.

“Minds need rest,” I said. My tone wasn’t soft, but it was civil. “If mages are awake in the world during the day and awake at night in the Fade, how do their minds get any quiet?”

[They set wards and sleep in the Fade,] he said. His voice was soft and I was too weary to try and read it.

“Then I’d like to sleep,” I said. “I don’t know how to set wards.”

It was stupid. I needed to ask questions. I needed to learn to use magic. I needed to learn what else I could do. But this was only the first night of a very, very long road. Trying to sprint out of the gate would be idiotic. I was tired, and I was going to fucking rest.

[No need,] he said softly. [I will protect you.]

I felt like I had hurt his feelings. It was ridiculous.

When I opened my eyes, I was in my bedroom in Haven. Fen’harel was not in sight. I prickled with unease that he knew so well the room I had only gotten yesterday, and at least half of it came from the fact that I found I couldn't be surprised.

I was sick to my stomach with worry about how to keep anything from him, whether or not I needed to, and about whether or not I had to tell the others about him. He frightened me because I knew he would do anything, and yet I felt oddly protective of him. The dichotomy was jarring.

I slammed the door on those thoughts and lay down atop the bed. I grabbed one of the pillows and hugged it to my chest, closed my eyes, and let myself drift.

 

* * * * *

 

I opened my eyes an instant later. The air was thicker and heavier and slower. It felt sedated. I was back in Thedas, then. I must not have dreamed.

A soft knock sounded on my door, and I realized that sounds of the woman's approach - I could smell her - were what had made me wake. A laysister let herself in. She carried a tray piled with an obscene amount of food and a pitcher of what I could smell was water. The tray she set on a square table near the door, and the pitcher on a smaller table next to a large ceramic bowl with a washing cloth draped over the side. She bowed low, murmured a few words, and backed out the door.

I sighed and rubbed my eyes.

It was midmorning. The air wasn’t sharp enough for pieces of night to be lingering, and the sun lent its own scent to everything. Fen'harel said I didn't need much sleep, so I must still be recovering from the Rift.

I rose, spread up the bed, stripped, and began to clean myself. My thoughts drifted to the night before.

I hadn’t truly expected Fen’harel to come for me, but I had feared it, like an itch at the back of my mind. He had done something I hadn’t expected, and that bothered me. And there was this odd sort of push and pull when I thought about him. I knew him, I felt comforted with him, but he also set worry under my skin, as if he _was_ a wolf and I was a prey animal he was deciding to play nice with. It was like his jaws were around me, I knew they could snap closed at any moment, and yet I--

My hands stilled.

Trickster. Manipulator. Master strategist, genius. His home was the Fade, perhaps moreso than the waking world ever could be.

It would make sense to keep the bearer of the mark close, especially when she was so unusual. How hard would it have been for him to give me a dream of running through the woods?

 _“Son of a bitch,”_ I cursed softly.

But he had _felt_ familiar, and I could tell my instincts and intuition were things I trusted.

. . . Still, he was the Dread Wolf. Underestimate him and it’s your own fault when everything goes horribly, catastrophically wrong later. I wouldn’t, I couldn’t, be that stupid.

I finished washing quickly and dressed in a fresh set of underclothes, then sat down to eat, combing my fingers through my half-wet hair while I chewed. There was wine with the food, but I had turned my nose up at it and had “felt” the pitcher of water clean, then drank from it instead. I liked water.

Fen’harel had told the truth about some things - my senses, my appetite - but the best lies were based in truth. How could I possibly verify. . . ?

Unless I could find someone who had known me. It was a long shot at best, but I couldn’t think of anything else. If we had enough time before the meet in Val Royeaux, I would be taking a trip to the Arbor Wilds. There were dozens of elvhen there who had served Mythal, and she had been close with Fen’harel. If I had been a part of his life, perhaps one of them would recognize me.

For the first time in what seemed like a week, I felt hopeful instead of overwhelmed. I had a tangible goal, and apparently that made all the difference. I dressed and braided my hair quickly, and opened my door--

To find Cole standing on the other side inches from my face. I jumped and cried out in surprise.

 _“Hello,”_ he said.

I half laughed and went to return the greeting until I realized -- _“You speak English?”_ My eyes went wide.

_“Yes. **You** do.”_

_"Meaning. . . that's why you do, too?"_ I ventured. Spirits and Demons could see inside of people, so why should language be out of bounds? Thinking about the mechanics of it was dizzying, though. Neural pathways, muscles shaping around foreign sounds. . . .

_"Yes. And yes, I will take you to Solas."_

I blinked at him. It was disappointing that I found his insight disorienting. I supposed I would have liked to think that I would take to it like a newborn foal to walking - it made so much more sense than verbal communication. But I felt conditioned to be another way. It was like Cole was speaking my native language, but it had been so long since I had heard or used it, that I would have to learn it all over again, and it made me profoundly sad.

As we walked, for once I could pretend the whispers and stares were at least a little bit about something other than me.

 _“It’s all still about you,”_ he said, as if surprised I didn’t know. _“They wonder about me, but then it makes them wonder about you more.”_

 _“. . .Yay,”_ I said flatly.

Solas was in one of the libraries. Open books were layed out around him, and I asked Cole to wait outside. I figured he didn’t need to hear us to eavesdrop, and even if he did, he’d just be able to pick the conversations out of our minds later. But appearances can make a difference, even if people know they're ultimately hollow.

Solas rose when I started toward him.

 _“You’re alright?”_ I asked a little stiffly.

He nodded, a reassuring smile in place, and I wanted to hit him. _He_ was ok, good, that was assured. So now why the fuck had he left me with a horrifying demon wolf?

 _“He said you’re not one of his. But did you know who he was?”_ Granted Solas couldn't have done anything against Fen'harel in the Fade, no matter how weakened he was. It was the principal of the thing.

Solas nodded, but in a tilted sort of way. I took that as a “more or less.”

I narrowed my eyes at him subtly and gripped my fingers behind my back. I looked down, trying to swallow my pride at what I had to say next.

 _”I’m sorry,”_ I finally said. The words were begrudgingly gentle. _“About before. I didn’t know what you wanted from me, why you kept looking at me, and the way you were doing it.”_ I met his eyes, needing to see his reaction. _“Why you kept speaking to me in elvhen. I get it now. And. . . I’m sorry. If you're not--"_ 'one of his,' I almost said, _"Ehm. . . I don't imagine there's a support group for elvhen who have survived this long, and I understand now. Your loneliness."_ His eyes went sharp and focused. _"The way you keep people away. Not just because of what you are, but because you know what you do, too. You know the lies people worship in this time. I knew, before, how alone you were because of what you believed, but this. . . this is different,”_ I finished uncomfortably.

He gestured to me, a question on his face.

_”What? Oh, me? What about. . . are you asking 'what about me?'"_

He nodded, and I waved it away. _“I don't even know if I’m real, Solas. But if I am, then in whatever life came before all of this, I think I was used to being. . . very alone,"_ I said, eyes going unfocused against a wash of what felt like very old, very deep pain. I shook myself and looked back to him. _"I’m not worried yet, anyway. Confused often, and more prone to annoyance than is probably ideal, buuut. . . there are worse things.”_ I looked up at him, a small grin on my face. _”Besides, **I** haven’t had to deal with the dalish yet.”_

He laughed, short but full, a smile just reaching his eyes, and it tugged at something in my chest. I hated the feeling immediately.

 _”Well,”_ I said, businesslike _”I have a new translator, so you can have the day off or whatever. Continue your love affair with. . . whatever twelve or so books you seem to be reading at once. Have you met him? Cole? Young human, very large, floppy hat.”_

Solas tilted his head slightly.

I couldn’t help the anticipatory smile that spread over my face. _“I’ll introduce you later. I think you’re really going to like him.”_ ‘Then maybe you won’t want to pester me as much,’ I thought churlishly. _”Apparently I slept in - do you know if the others have spoken to Cullen yet?”_

He nodded, his face turning serious.

 _”. . . It went that well, did it?”_ I asked flatly. _”Did it seem like he needed some space?”_

He made a face that I took to mean ‘maybe.’

I rolled my eyes and puffed a breath out of my lips. _“Well. . . I'm going to go for a run before I find Josie. If she asks after me, will you let her know?”_

He gave me a curious look, and I shrugged. _”I’ve felt stir-crazy since last night. Whatever poor bastard is set to teach me Common won't get much good out of me if I'm clawing at the walls. Maybe I have pent up energy from being passed out for three days. Go figure.”_ ‘Or maybe it’s the new slash old body,’ I didn’t add.

Confusion touched his features. I raised my brows at him, and he held up his index finger. But it wasn’t “wait;” he was watching me and waiting for a reaction.

 _”What, 'one?' One wha--”_ I stopped, mouth open. _“No. You’re not saying I was passed out for **one** day? Please tell me that’s not what you’re saying.”_

He gave a disgustingly elegant dip of his chin, watching me intently.

If he was telling the truth - and I saw no reason he shouldn’t be - the implications were troubling. I would need to be explicitly careful when I told people what was “going” to happen.

 _”Well. . . shit,”_ I breathed to myself, _”there went my good mood.”_ Then I remembered Solas had hearing as good as mine. I looked up at him and chuckled half-nervously. _”You know I figured the good senses were an elf thing. But I think I also sort of knew that it was just me, since no one else seemed to be holding in bile over the smell of pretty much everyone in this town.”_ The corners of his lips twitched. _“It’s going to take some getting used to, knowing you can pick up everything I can.”_ I felt an odd swell of relief to not be alone, even in that small way. That he ellicited it was something I would never confess.

 _”You didn’t tell them what I was, right?”_ It was a confirmation more than a question. I had the inescapable sense that he considered us some sort of private club now, with separate loyalties from the Inquisition or the mission. It made me grouchy.

Solas shook his head, then gesture-asked me not to tell them about him, either. I rolled my eyes. _”I’m not an ass, Solas.”_

I turned around, waved goodbye over my shoulder, and let myself out without another word. I felt confusion - no, consternation - from him through the door and growled silently. I couldn’t even get away from the man by getting away from him. What was horrifying was that it made me physically uncomfortable to put too much distance between us. I could just kick him out of the Inquisition, right? That would be fine. We didn't _really_ need an expert on the things that were tearing the world apart, right?

I found Cole staring up at a statue in the cathedral, oblivious to the dozen or so people all staring at him.

 _“I will be ready,”_ he said absently without looking at me. _”After you run. It’s a good idea. Racing and running, dancing and pushing and remembering. You need it.”_

I huffed a laugh. _”Well with an endorsement like that. . . . I think I’ll head over to get tested for combat after. Thank you, Cole.”_

He didn’t say anything or look away from the statue.

I had the sudden and curious worry that I would ask too much of him without realizing it, and that he would get annoyed but not say anything until it was too late.

 _”Old hurts,”_ he said absently. _”From before. I will tell you.”_

 _”Oh, uh. . . thanks. Again. I appreciate it.”_ I wondered if he knew more about my past than I did.

_”It speaks to you, if you want to listen. But he took too much, he was too desperate, rushed and hurried and impatient. Had to get it right, no more chances, no more time. It was not like him. He doesn’t want you to hear. 'There is no more time for mistakes.'”_

My senses honed in on him like he was a rabbit and I was starving to death. _". . .Who doesn't want me to hear, Cole?"_

_"The one who made you. So many pieces, so much time, 'all to save them, even though they don't deserve it. Fools to the slaughter, weak and willing and so wrong.' He put pieces of himself in, he had to. I hear him, whispered fragment singing through the blanket. But he did it all wrong, even when he finally got it right."_

I thought of a conversation Varric would have with Cole about using nouns, and didn't think he could have it too soon. Cole knew something, something Fen'harel hadn't wanted to tell me, if I could just get him to speak in a way that I could understand.

 _"You do understand,"_ he said, and he finally looked at me. _"You just don't remember. He doesn't want you to, because it's the one part he got wrong. If you forget, you'll be perfect. You can finally do what he wanted."_ He paused. _"But he doesn't want you to really exist. He made you, but he forgot that you exist, too. It is. . . sad."_

Cole looked back up at the statue, and a shiver passed through me.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 6/25/17: Scene meeting Cole tweaked for new things I learned about him


	11. Laying the Field

Like everything else so far, the lake outside Haven’s gates was larger than I expected. I decided that "bigger and more intricate" would be my default assumption going forward. Notices of the formation of the Inquisition had been hammered on the gates, the Chantry doors, and some of the town's buildings since yesterday. Banners had been hung on either side of the Chantry entrance.

When I started to run around the frozen water, the physical relief I felt was immediate.

After my first lap, half-sprinting through the snow and not breathing hard, I was elated, overjoyed, laughing despite myself. I pushed myself harder and ran as fast as I could. Which was surprisingly fast. Trees blurred around me and hair whipped loose from my braid.

I remembered feeling weak. Tired and heavy, all the time. This was freedom pure, ecstatic.

After the third lap, still running outright, I started to wonder exactly how long I could go. In my dream I had remembered running for a day without getting tired. I didn’t suppose I had the spare time to test that; I couldn’t wait to get to Mythal’s temple. If the Sentinels would speak with me, I’d be able to know definitively what I could do.

On my fourth lap, a cold breeze hit my face from the direction of the town, bringing with it a scent that made me look up. My eyes found the training camp.

No one was sparring. No one was working. They were all gawping at me. I trotted to a stop and stared back. A grin spread over my face, and I decided there was no time like the present to get my assessment done. The closer I got to their area, the more of them hurried to look busy.

I found Cassandra inside the camp. Unfortunately, she was speaking with Cullen, who I was honestly nervous to see.

He said a word to me, hesitant, uncertain and uncomfortable, even a little curt, but polite enough.

 _“Herald,”_ Cole said, suddenly next to me.

The slide of two swords being drawn cut through the air as Cassandra and Cullen rounded on him. I held my hands up to them. _“Friend,”_ I cried, _“he’s a friend!”_ But of course they didn’t trust those words when they came translated by Cole. _“Go get Solas, please,”_ I said to him with a sigh.

Their eyes darted around when he vanished without sight or sound, then landed back on me. I shook my head apologetically and repeated the word Cullen had said, pointing at myself. Hopefully it would distract them.

“Herald. Herald?”

“Yes,” Cassandra said. “זה טו. .אתה **Herald.”** Her voice was wary. “מה זה היה ?זה ילד,” She asked Cullen.

“אני יכול רק לדמיין," Cullen said darkly. "האם אנחנו בטוחים שאנחנו יכולים לסמוך, **Cassandra?”** He asked in a low voice. He sounded dubious.

“זמנהיגיד לעת עת ,ה איזו ברי .רה יש לנו ?הוא היחידה אשר יכול לאטום את הקרעים.”

Cullen made an “I hear you but I don’t like it” noise in his throat.

I waited silently for Solas until it drew out well past awkward. With one more look toward the gates and him nowhere in sight, I sighed. _“I remembered my name,”_ I offered. “Nuaelan.” I pointed to myself. “Nua.”

“אתה נזכר?” Cassandra asked, eyes widening.

“הודית בשביל זה,” Cullen uttered.

Another silence stretched out, and I began to fidget. _“So. . . I’m sorry,”_ I said, looking at Cullen. For knowing too much that was personal, too much that was difficult. He didn’t seem like the type of man who would appreciate his pain being waved out in the open. Especially not when he probably blamed himself for it. Good people tended to do that.

Contrition was a clear expression; he seemed to understand, but it only made him look uncomfortable again. I looked away to spare him.

Mercifully, Solas was approaching at that moment. Cole was with him - I could feel him, but he was nowhere to be seen. I looked to Solas in question, brows creased. _“Is Cole here?”_

He nodded, and my lips thinned. I looked at the place where I felt him, same as I felt the other three.

 _“Cole. . . please,”_ I said. _"You translated for me before, right? That's why you said 'Herald,' because that's what Cullen said?"_ I couldn’t do this conversation one-sided.

To state the obvious, I got odd looks for talking to empty air. They should get used to odd, it would be better for everyone involved.

 _“They’re afraid of me,"_ he said. _"I don’t want to make people afraid.”_

I looked at the others, but no one else seemed to have heard him

 _“People are always afraid of new things,”_ I said. _”We evolved that way to survive in a world where everything wanted us dead. They can't feel things the way you do, you have to give them time to get used to you. Some of them won’t, but enough of them will. You’ll make friends. People who will remember you. But it will help if you act more like they do. Don’t appear and disappear in front of them, for instance. Will you go appear just around the corner inside the gate, and walk toward us?”_

Solas felt a quiet, humming sort of pleased pride at my words, almost like a proud parent. It made me want to hit him. When he flashed to some sort of consternation, I assumed he could feel me as I did him and resolved to figure out how to fold my “ara’lin” into impenetrable oblivion.

In answer, I felt the “air” around me compress and condense until it felt like a hard, dense shell, close and cocooning. That must be my ara’lin, then, that thing, that presence I felt around me. Which meant, given how it had all but acted for me in fights so far, I would have some help learning how to use my magic even if Fen'harel weren't an option. It would pale in comparison, but it would be something.

I felt Cole vanish. I held a finger up toward the others - "wait" - and looked to the gates expectantly. A moment later, there was Cole, thick leathers holding his form and big hat drooping over his face. A wide smile spread over mine.

 _“This is Cole,”_ I said as I watched him approach. Solas translated. I held my hands up again as Cullen and Cassandra’s went to their blades, though they didn't move to draw this time. _“He’s unusual, like me. Well. . . not like me, exactly. But he’s unusual, and he’s here to help. He’ll seem strange, but you can trust him. And he’ll be able to do things that don’t seem possible, also like me. And he’s. . . well he’s different. He doesn’t understand people very well, so please be patient with him.”_

My brow wrinkled. _I_ didn’t understand people, I remembered. But I had learned how to pretend that I did.

“Herald?” Cassandra asked.

I shook myself. _“Sorry,”_ I said. _“I’m still. . . “_ ‘remembering things,’ I was going to say. But that reminded me that I’d just told them my name. _“Right. To answer a question you probably asked earlier, no, I haven’t really remembered anything. I’m getting pieces of my world and small things about myself, but it’s like. . .”_ I thought a moment. _“It's like I’m reading a story and I know I'm the main character more than it's like remembering my own life._

 _"I met someone. . . .“_ I paused. I _really_ didn’t want to say all of this in front of Solas, since I didn’t know how much of it I bought yet, but I’d just have to do the best I could until I could speak for myself. I doubted they’d trust Cole enough yet to have him translate alone.

 _“I met someone last night in the Fade who knows me.”_ Supposedly. _“He told me my name. He told me something else, too, but. . . ."_ I paused.

 _"But?"_ Cassandra prompted when I didn't speak. Cole translated it for me in a monotone. When she and Cullen looked at him, Cole translated Solas’ explanation to them for me just as flatly.

 _“Cole’s nature allows him to speak any language,”_ he said. _“He is translating our words into her language for her.”_

 _“Can he be trusted with it?”_ Cassandra asked, eyeing Cole.

 _“He can, Seeker,”_ Solas assured her. I almost snorted a laugh. Given how little I trusted him, that was hysterical. _“Should you not be comfortable with the idea, I can assure you that I will know if he mistranslates anything.”_

 _“But he won’t,”_ I said bluntly. ‘I trust him more than I trust any of you,’ he didn’t say.

 _“You can trust them,”_ Cole said as if surprised.

 _“I know, Cole.”_ I sighed and rubbed my temples. Having a conversation between five people in two languages with two translators, one of whom was inside my head, was proving disorienting.

 _”What is he?”_ Cassandra asked, still watching him warily.

 _”Don’t answer that,”_ I blurted. _”Just. . .”_ I pinched the bridge of my nose. _“Just one thing that’s difficult to swallow at a time, please. We can tell them about him later. Or never. Whichever comes last.”_

Solas gave me a _look._ Well, for Solas.

 _“Oh Jesus I’m not serious,”_ I admonished. _“I just don’t want to have to defend him yet to people who think he’s evil just because their church told them so. Not when they probably already think **I’ve** gone mad, or been hanging out with demons all night, I don’t know. Call me the untrusting sort.”_

 _“But you aren't,”_ Cole interrupted as if stating the obvious. _"It's why you're so careful now. Cautious, caring, can't let them see."_

I scowled at him.

 _“You don’t trust **him** because you know what he can do,"_ He went on. _"You know what he wants to do. You know he killed his friend. But he's still good.”_

Solas and I went oddly still. I broke the tension with a sigh and gestured helplessly to Cullen and Cassandra. _“Christ on a crutch,”_ I muttered, _“where is that language teacher.”_

 _“Waiting for you with the woman with the clipboard,”_ Cole explained.

 _“That was a rhetorical question, Cole.”_ I put a hand to my forehead. _“And I know he's good."_ 'I of all people know that,' I had the urge to say. _"But sometimes being good **deep down** isn't enough. And until I know more--”_

 _“It is better to protect the heart,”_ he interrupted.

 _“Something like that,”_ I muttered.

 _“His name was Felassan, Solas,”_ I explained in answer to his reaction. _“If you know who the Dread Wolf is, and you’d goddamned well better since you seem to have let him take over for you without a fight, then you know the war he fought in elvhenan and that he’ll to do anything for the right goal. Don’t be so surprised. Felassan was one of his closest friends, and frankly someone I very much wanted to know. I’m sure it killed a piece of him to do it, but you’ll understand my caution. Whether or not I know more than you do about what comes next when Corypheus is gone,”_ I finished, making my skepticism clear.

 _“What about Corypheus?”_ Cole translated Cullen’s words in a monotone.

 _“Nothing,”_ I said with a wave of my hand and a shake of my head. _“An aside. And at least in private, I'd prefer we call him Sethius. I don't want to play into his aspirations of godhood. So we call him Sethius, we call me Nua, can we please start hitting things now?" I had the vain hope they would forget that other something Fen'harel had revealed that I hadn't told them._

Solas helped when his lips twitched in amusement at my name.

 _”Yes, yes, it’s very funny,”_ I said sourly. _”Hilarious, appropriate, a regular riot, laugh hysterically on your own time.”_

 _“Was she this irreverent in the Fade?”_ Cullen asked, exasperated.

 _“More or less,”_ Cassandra replied. _“Why did you seem amused when she mentioned her name, Solas?”_

 _“It means ‘Trouble,’”_ I answered for him, voice churlish. _“Apparently I chose it, apparently it’s apt, can we please move on?”_

 _”Wait,”_ Cullen said, _“just wait a moment. If Cole,”_ he made the name sound as distasteful as he seemed to find the boy--

 _"Cullen your templar is showing,"_ I interrupted.

_"I-- what?"_

_"Different and mysterious doesn't always mean demon in disguise. You have a built-in demon-detector right here,"_ I said, jabbing a thumb toward Solas.

 _“Yyeees,"_ he said. _"As I was saying, if the boy can translate our words into her language, can’t Solas teach her the spell to learn our tongue?”_

 _“No!”_ I cry-barked, my eyes going wide, even as Solas tried to reply.

Everyone but Cole stared at me. _“It. . . it's unpleasant,”_ I said, every bit as self-conscious as anyone would expect after the seemingly random outburst. _“Besides, if it’s not going to teach me to speak it, I might as well just not bother. I can be fluent enough in Common in a month if I stop speaking and hearing English and work my ass off with the tutor. He should come with us on the road.”_

 _”That seems ambitious,”_ Cassandra said, _“but I will speak to Josephine about it.”_

 _“You mentioned that this person in the Fade told you something else about yourself,"_ Cullen said. I let my eyes slide closed. Of course. Of course he would remember. _“Stuff I already knew,"_ I lied carefully.

 _"Such as?"_ He was unamused to say the least, and there was challenge in his bearing.

My eyes sparked in reaction. His mirrored it, and my hackles went right up.

“Nua,” Solas cautioned.

 _“Oh don’t you even start,”_ I snapped at him. Wisely, he stopped translating. _“He’s the one getting his goddamned panties in a twist. Yeah, your world is ending, but it isn't **my** world, is it? It isn't **my** problem, none of this is! I don’t have to be here helping - I mean I am because I'm not a complete asshole - and he's going to give me the third goddamned degree because he's all self-conscious that I know more about him than I should which, **by the way,"**_ I added with a glower in his direction, _"is not even my fault? I don’t have to be doing this! If he can't keep his stupid bruised ego or whatever in his stupid pants,"_ I gestured at them sharply, eliciting an increasingly confused look from the Commander, _"then he can stick his equally stupid manicured blonde head right up his miserable ass!”_

 _". . .I probably don't want to know what she's saying, do I?"_ Cullen leaned in and murmured to Cassandra in an undertone.

 _"I highly doubt it,"_ she replied flatly.

 _ **”To answer your question,”**_ I said, turning back to the others, _“I believe the stated differences were, as compared to other elves,”_ I ticked off on my fingers, _“stronger, faster, more stamina, heightened senses, small appetite and decreased related. . . functions, ability to go longer without food or water, grace, larger lungs, larger and faster heart, resistance to extreme temperatures, the obvious physical differences, **unless you’d like them listed out for you in detail,”**_ I said pointedly to Cullen. To my tremendous surprise, he blushed. It threw me off, but I recovered quickly and went on, though most of the heat left my voice.

_“He said I wouldn't need much sleep, and that I was trained for. . . well, for a lot. Which means I can make an educated guess about how the combat assessment is going to go. Oh, and Solas said I was only passed out for a day after closing the Rift?”_

_“A day and a half, to be precise,”_ Cassandra said.

I made an uncertain noise in my throat. _“Well, then, you need to be very careful with the things I tell you about the future, because it should have been three.”_

 _“. . .Wonderful,”_ Cullen said, rubbing his forehead with one hand.

 _“Yeah that's pretty much where I sit on all this bullshit, too. Now come on,”_ I said, walking toward a nearby weapon rack. _“We’re annoyed at each other, let's see who can hit whom the most.”_ I turned around to see him looking utterly taken aback.

 _“. . . What? I like the direct approach to conflict resolution. We're going to be working together a lot, why should we let it fester? Oh,"_ I added, letting a half-mocking grin spread over my face, _"and for your own safety, I recommend you don't hold back."_

. . . This could end horribly. I was banking on the feeling that it wouldn't, but still, if I got maimed, I'd know that I had basically asked for it.

Ignoring the hushed conversation now going on behind me, I grabbed a wooden training sword and hefted it experimentally, viciously pleased that my body seemed to know the feel of it well. I grinned to myself, and it was not the friendliest of expressions. I felt something rising in me like the crest of a wave, and was suddenly looking forward to the excuse to, as I had so eloquently put it, "hit something."

The sword was crude and awkward, but it would do. There was a rush of relief at having it in my hand, moving my arm and shifting my muscles, and something clicked into place: this helped the feeling I'd had last night, the feeling that hadn’t truly abated with my run. Fen’harel had said I was trained mercilessly - that meant discipline, repetition. I must be used to doing something with a weapon every day.

To my somewhat perverse delight, I heard not Cassandra’s, but Cullen’s footfalls approach. I felt him watch me for a moment, then lean in and pick up another of the wooden swords.

 _“I owe you an apology,”_ Cole said in his monotone as Cullen spoke. The Commander’s tone seemed halting, even begrudging, but contrite.

Cole had approached without sound or scent. It was disorienting, and begged a few questions, but it explained why he made such a prodigious rogue.

 _“Oh, now don’t try and butter me up,”_ I said with feigned lightness. Cole interpreted for me as Solas stood back with Cassandra. _“You picked up the sword, it's too late now. You're stuck with me.”_ I turned a polite grin on him. I was still annoyed, but the way I was holding on to it in the face of what had been an obviously sincere apology, it probably wasn’t directed at him, not really. I hadn’t taken time - I hadn’t _had_ time - to deal with the splinter-sized frustrations and nicks of stress that had been piling up, even in what only amounted to a few days. _“Well I mean you can, but frankly I’m a little afraid of Cassandra so I'd rather do this with you. God, don’t tell her I said that. . . . And now I realize I've just insulted you, too. This is going so well."_ I sighed and put my face in my hand. _"Sweet Mary and mother of Moses,"_ I muttered to myself. I made a noise of protest when Cole started to translate it.

I looked up, startled, when Cullen chuckled. _"You're doing fine,"_ he assured me. God help me, he had that grin on his face, the half-cocked one that turns bones to porridge. I knew it was meant to reassure me, but I embarrassed myself yet again by staring dumbly at him while I tried to think of anything to say in reply.

He rescued me by going on. _“I mean it. You’re right, you didn’t choose this, and you have done nothing but help us willingly. You have asked for nothing in return. I don't know many people who would insist on being moved to more modest accommodations to make room for the wounded.”_

I turned my face from him, stirred to discomfort by the compliments. He noticed, but either misinterpreted, or was kind enough to pretend he didn't.

 _“I. . . saw you, when you were found,"_ he went on. _"Frankly I’m still amazed you lived through the night. Cassandra said that from the moment you woke below the Chantry, you didn’t fight or argue, that you did everything you could to help, despite the fact that you were obviously lost. She said you carried on long after you should have collapsed from blood loss. That even not knowing our language, you told her about the scouts in the pass that needed help.”_

I shrugged self-consciously, growing more uncomfortable by the word. _”Unique physiology, I guess,”_ I murmured. _”I. . . .”_ I hated the feeling that we were ignoring the elephant in the room. So I huffed a sigh and looked at him. _“Look,”_ I said, moving forward and lowering my voice. Cole caught on and translated quietly. _“I know. . . with the the things you've seen and been through since you became a templar, I can’t imagine how. . . **uncomfortable,"**_ I said carefully, hoping he'd get my meaning, _“it has to be knowing that I know things you didn't give me permission to know. I'm sure it's hard for everyone, just like I'm sure they wouldn't be able to understand how much harder it is for you than it would be almost anyone else.”_ He stiffened subtly, glanced at Cole, then held me with an intense, watchful gaze.

 _“I can't apologize for that,"_ I went on. _"I don't know how. It seems like I traded everything about myself to know things about other people, instead."_ I shook my head and forced myself back on track. This wasn't about me. _"For whatever paltry consolation it might be, I don't judge, I don’t pity, and I don’t talk about what I know."_ I enunciated the last part firmly. _"It's not my information to give."_ I looked down at the sword in my hand, suddenly not wanting to meet his eyes. _"I know you don't know me, and I guess technically I don't know you. But I like you."_ My eyes returned to his in some sort of surrender or entreaty. _"I **respect** you.”_ ‘Except when you’re being a prat,’ I didn't say.

I paused and studied him. I had no way to identify the scent coming from him, and his face was nearly blank, like he himself didn't know how he felt about all of this yet, though I doubted that was the case. Solas, on the other hand, was unignorable. Something like ire and stubborn disbelief was rolling from him, though I felt him try to tuck it away.

 _"I guess I just hope that I can earn enough of your trust over time that we can work together. We likely have a long road ahead of us."_ I choked down some of the less charitable, equatable things I wanted to say; this was about getting him to start lowering his guard around me and relaxing his hackles. An idea for a modicum of revenge occurred to me, and I had to shove down a grin. _"You're a very good man, you know, whether you believe that or not."_ I shrugged. _"I'm objective. You’re remarkably strong, incredibly resilient, courageous, honorable and compassionate,”_ I saw an argument behind his eyes and the same discomfort I had felt when he had complimented me. I wanted to laugh and do a little dance. It was all true, of course, but that was hardly the point.

Then, I couldn't help but turn what had become a small speech into something useful by nudging his confidence down a road the rest of him was already taking, like helping him build a scaffolding: _“Most impressive, though, is that you learn from your mistakes and you always try to make yourself a better man. And you are. You're better than you ever were, and if half the people in the world could care as much as you did, we likely wouldn't have this war on our hands."_

He looked at me far longer than was polite, and I held his gaze. _"You said 'we,'"_ he finally said.

 _"Huh?"_ I replied smartly.

_"You said **we** wouldn't have a war on **our** hands. Cassandra and Leliana were quite clear that you didn't lump yourself in with the rest of us or this world last night."_

I opened my mouth to reply, then closed it and blinked rapidly. Then, I put a grin on my face and said, _"Well, who can say no to a handsome blonde Commander?"_ I ribbed.

Cole uttered something that caused Cullen's cheeks to flame. I looked at the spirit curiously, but he seemed to be closely examining something on the ground.

Cassandra cleared her throat. _"Perhaps we can get on with the testing, Commander,"_ she said loudly and pointedly. _"The sooner we can get her learning Common, the better."_

 _"Yes, please,"_ I agreed in a falsely bright voice. _"Before I say something embarrassing and inappropriately personal.”_ I lifted the blade into a stance and my muscles moved like they were made of water.

Cullen noticed, and I noticed him notice, and a grin that was not entirely friendly split my face. I was _excited_ for this.

The world compressed and condensed into basic sensory input. Like I was drugged, the tiring, present, analyzing parts of my mind vanished. Personality and self-regulation vanished. I was honed in on Cullen, but aware that all around us, sparring was stopping, voices were muttering, soldiers were elbowing one another to get their comrades' attention, and heads were turning toward us. Within moments, almost all the sound of combat stopped.

_Opponent riddled with old injuries, none severe enough to use. Fresh bruise on his head, hit it on the edge of a door or window three to four hours ago. Not painful enough to be immediately useful._

_Veteran combatant, not prone to arrogance in battle. Competent, steady._

_Weak and slow._

_This will be over in seconds._

My grin turned feral, and with a testing jab from Cullen, the fight was on.

I turned his blade away and, faster than he could see, penetrated his guard, slashed over his ribs and whirled the blade to bring it up backhanded against his throat.

He blinked at me. To a human, the silence likely would have been deafening. The onlookers were struck dumb. Our fight had finished in two seconds.

Cullen collected himself, and if I hadn't had 100 percent of his attention before, I did now. He took up a stance. _“Again,”_ Cole translated for him.

Cullen circled me this time. I didn’t mirror him; I just stood facing forward, affecting a relaxed posture, blade resting at my side.

He lifted his arm to come at me from behind. I didn’t question the honor of the move - he was testing me to see how I would survive in a real fight, with opponents who wouldn’t stick to a code of conduct. I was gratified he wasn't coddling me.

I whirled around him like a dancer, gripped the hand that held his blade and bringing it up to his throat and positioning my own between his legs, pressed to his inner thigh to let him know it was there.

Murmuring broke out around us.

Distantly I remembered the part of my dream like this, where battle made me feel exultant, and I knew that if Fen’harel had given me the dreams, at least this much was true. This was what I _was,_ this was what I was made for. There was no thought, there was no care or personality, there was only the blade in my hand and the movement of my opponent. The smile was gone from my face. I wanted _more._

A whisper of trepidation wafted to me from Solas, and I ignored it.

 _“. . .I think it’s safe to say you know how to use a sword,”_ Cole translated. _”Elden,”_ Cullen called, and an elven women approached, slight and short even for one of her kind. I followed her with my eyes and ignored that same feeling of revulsion at the sight of her.

 _“Don’t go easy on her,”_ Cullen murmured.

She gave him a curt nod, eyes already on me. _“Aye, Commander.”_

Cullen got me a pair of live blades and I saw him give me an odd look from the corner of my eye when he handed them to me. I was still fixated on Elden. The daggers were flimsy and didn't smell of blood; they were only meant for beginners in practice. Cullen stood back and crossed his arms to watch with everyone else. Our audience had grown, swelling with townspeople. It only made me feel more predatory.

I smelled Leliana and Varric among the crowd. I smelled the woman who had brought me breakfast and the one who had shown me to my room last night. I smelled people from the smithy and the tavern and the kitchens and the bakery, the general goods dealer, the quartermaster, the healing tents and stables and chantry and small makeshift orphanage. I felt Solas’ interest, far too focused for a simple bout of sparring. A hum of energy was in the air from the collection of people - I could feel their excitement and unease. Some of them were making wagers. I wanted to laugh at the notion that anyone was stupid enough to think I would lose.

Elden drew twin daggers from her hip, beautifully curved things and sharp as a fine razor. She stood, seemingly loose and relaxed, watching me calmly. I smelled her readiness, I felt her attention, I saw muscles coiled under the surface of her skin. She was good, but her hips gave her intentions away. Still, she was born to fight, and I would bet she was one of Cullen's best.

A grin crept into my eyes. She saw, and mirrored it.

I liked this woman.

Time stretched on, and most people would have prompted us to start by now, but the tension in the air was pulled tight as catgut on a bow. Cullen watched, trained eyes taking in more from our stillness than most people would from the rest of the fight.

And then Elden vanished. It was impressive, I would give her - she was gone even to my eyes. But her heart still beat, she still breathed and carried a scent, and her feet, however deft, still had to touch the earth.

She didn’t come up behind me, which I appreciated - that would have been obvious. She moved to hit low and from the side.

By the time she came back into sight, I had her disarmed, her weapon belt slashed from her waist, slashes in her fabric over the bottles of poison she carried under her clothes - we weren't drawing blood, after all - and the point of one of my daggers hovering half an inch from her right eye. The other was at her gullet. I watched her with a flat expression, then canted my head at her.

Cole was muttering something. I ignored it.

Elden looked up at me, wide-eyed. Cole was kind enough to translate when she breathed _“Holy shit.”_

I let one corner of my mouth quirk up.

Cullen was nearly a statue. _“Get her a bow,”_ he said tightly.

A soldier hurried forward and held his out to me. There was disbelief and awe in his face, and I could practically hear what he was thinking: ‘They were right about her, Maker, they were right, there’s no other explanation.’

The bow was as weak as the daggers had been. I plucked the string experimentally, then walked to where I knew - from that preternatural stock my senses had taken of the “battlefield” earlier - the practice arrows sat several paces from the targets. I pulled two, then turned and walked away. I stopped when I was at what I knew would be the bow’s limit. I drew back experimentally again and adjusted my distance.

I nocked an arrow, angled the bow, and fired. Before the string had even fully recoiled I had the second arrow placed and was firing again with its vibration, moving with it like it was a tide for me to follow.

I walked back and went straight to the practice arrows. I didn’t have to check the targets to know that the arrows were dead-center. I would have known even if every face collected wasn’t looking at me, stunned and, in the place of the mistrust from people who wisely doubted my divine heritage, incredulous. I pulled two more arrows and put one in my teeth. As quickly as I had before, I loosed first one arrow, then the other. Both hit their targets and split the shafts of the arrows already there down their dead centers.

A piece of trivia: That was how, absently, I remembered the story of Robin Hood.

I itched for more, I _begged_ for it, but I knew my trials were over and so, grudgingly, I started to come back to myself. I walked up to the man who had given me the bow and returned it, then stepped away and looked at Cullen. As Solas came forward to translate, I took a final, deep breath, and I was back in my body.

 _“If you put any weapon in my hand, I think I could use it. I also think I'd be more deadly with my bare hands,"_ I glanced down at them, _"than any of your soldiers fully armed.”_ That was a lie - I _knew_ I could.

I gave Cullen space to absorb what I'd said. For my part, I didn't seem to need to. It was like I had just remembered that I could grip things with my fingers.

 _“. . . Maker help us if your people ever decide to invade.”_ Cullen finally said, and it was like he had dropped a boulder into my stomach. I consoled myself with the hope that I was much, _much_ better trained than other elvhen.

There was a new respect in Cullen's eyes, and most of it was positive. I would take it. _“I think it’s safe to say you’ll be fine in the field.”_

 _“. . . That’s good to know.”_ The whispered murmurs around us suddenly came into sharp focus, and the weight of so many stares was pressing. _“So,"_ I said. _"Uh. . . Smite?”_ I said.

Cullen looked at me a long moment, then barked at everyone to get back to what they were supposed to be doing. He looked into the dispersing crowd at his right and motioned for someone to come forward, then approached me. A large man in simple armor separated from the crowd and moved to join us. Cassandra, Solas, and Varric remained to watch. Cole was just behind me, staring into the departing bodies.

 _“Templars and mages have been trickling in in small numbers since the Conclave. This is Kerry. I served with him for a short time in Kirkwall before he was reassigned elsewhere. He knows what he’s doing. Kerry, I don’t imagine I need to introduce you after that,”_ he said to the big man in a wry tone.

 _“I shouldn’t think so, no, Ser,”_ he said, eyeing me. The same sort of disbelief that was blooming into something dangerously like faith was in his eyes as it had been in so many others before Cullen had shooed them away. His, though, was tempered by years, careful skepticism and, I could see, too much experience. I imagined he was like Cullen; he was good enough, and life had put him through too much of the ugliness people could offer.

 _“Start with a mana drain,"_ Cullen said. _"Hold back on the first one.”_

He and Kerry stepped back, and I widened my stance. I felt something come at me through Kerry, but the “air,” the connection to the Fade around me absorbed it completely and swallowed it away. I blinked and looked around, feeling like I must have missed something. I looked back to Kerry. The man looked stymied.

 _”Everything you have, then,”_ Cole translated for Cullen.

Again, I felt the thing fly from him, bigger this time, like a storm through the air to loop around me and sink in, and again, it was swallowed.

 _“Is it supposed to be doing that?”_ I asked, confused. I was referring to the air, not Kerry's "attack."

 _“It. . . .”_ Kerry looked at Cullen. _“I don’t understand it. It's hitting her fine, but nothing’s happening.”_

 _“Let me try a Spell Purge,”_ Cassandra said, walking to stand next to me. _”Call up a flame,”_ she said to me.

A ball of warm, golden, gentle fire came to life in front of my chest. I hadn’t moved to call it and Kerry’s eyes looked like they were going to bulge out of his head. Cullen looked disquieted to say the least. I ignored both of them and did my best impression of 'that was a totally normal thing that happens all the time for everyone always.' It certainly felt normal. Natural. Solas felt that way about seeing me do it, but it was all cocktailed together with pain and bittersweet gratitude. I dearly wanted to tell him to put that thing - his ara'lin - away, but doing it now would just be unkind. Well, more unkind than necessary.

It occurred to me that asking him to put it away at all, when god knew how many centuries it had been since he'd been around another elvhen, would be cruel. Which meant I couldn't do it. Which cast a decided shadow over my mood.

Cassandra and I readied ourselves; she took a wide stance, then jerked an arm downward. I felt something similar to what had come from Kerry, but more concentrated and sharp. It came crashing down from above as if a deluge of water from a great height.

 _“I felt something that time,”_ I offered. _“It was almost like. . . a brush of something, maybe?”_

 _"Maker have mercy,"_ Cole helpfully translated for Kerry's breath of a plea.

Cassandra looked utterly nonplussed, and I let the flame snuff out.

 _“It must be her connection to the Fade,”_ Solas said. Everyone turned to him, and he looked at me. Cullen quickly excused Kerry, who put his fist to his chest and dipped his head and, with a last uneasy glance at me, he hurried off. When he was out of earshot, Solas went on.

 _“I explained to the others yesterday that something about you seems to negate the existence of the Veil.”_ My brows shot up. _"It can be seen as a sort of vibration that separates our world from the Fade, and something about you cancels it out. It shouldn't be possible. It isn't a breach or a tear like the Rifts; there has been no indication that it will pull spirits or demons through to this side, and it appears stable."_ Excitement crept into his voice, then. _"Rather, a pocket of the world around you seems to exist as it would have before the Veil. Naturally, as it was intended. In a way, the only place in all the world that is whole is in your immediate vicinity. I would very much like to study it. But that phenomenon must be what is stopping these abilities from working as intended.”_

When no one spoke, he went on.

 _“A normal mage has a pool of mana,”_ he explained. _”They are connected to the Fade, but because of the Veil, that connection is limited, strangled. That is why mana is a resource that must be managed and takes time to recharge. This is not the case with Nua. Her pool is essentially limitless, thus any abilities meant to interfere with it would be entirely useless.”_

I looked down at my hand. _"Let me ask you something,"_ I ventured, speculative. _"The air around you, does it feel. . . alive? Like it moves and breathes, like it's there to help you if you need it?"_

 _"That is not the norm for any mage, no,"_ he said, and I understood his omission as much as what he'd said.

 _"Might it be the norm for **anyone?"**_ I asked.

_"Not since the Veil separated our two worlds, no."_

_I felt certain that the others must realize we were having a hidden conversation. “. . . Huh,”_ I said at length. _“That. . . actually that explains a lot.”_

 _"I'm glad someone thinks so,"_ Cullen grumbled. _"All I'm getting from this is a headache."_ He muttered something else to himself that Cole didn’t bother to translate.

I turned to the spirit. _“So. . . level with me. How afraid of me is he right now?”_ I asked with a slight jut of my chin toward Cullen.

 _“He isn’t, not afraid of you,”_ Cole said, eyes unfocused. _“He is afraid of himself. Bad choices bad judgement, trust misplaced, foolish decisions, naive and blind, supposed to help but can't even see the nose on my face,”_ he uttered quickly. Then back to normal, _“He thinks he can’t be trusted. He thinks no one can be, not anymore, but him least of all. You might be hope. But you can't be. You are impossible, not real, too good to be true. 'I'm missing something, time will tell me what.'”_

I sighed. _“Well. . . I suppose that's fair,” I said, keeping the majority of my sadness about his pain to myself._

 _“He doesn’t like it when we talk and he can’t understand,”_ Cole said.

I huffed a laugh. _“Shocking. Well. . . he can stuff it. And don't translate that. He gets to talk with everyone in a language I can't understand all the time. Sometimes a girl needs privacy, and I'll appreciate it while I have it.”_

 _“Not a girl,”_ Cole muttered, _“a woman, the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen, skin perfect, full lips, beautiful face, so strong and so soft even under the pain, Maker how can I notice this now, long legs, breasts--”_

 _“Cole!”_ I cried, throwing my arms up and waving at him like I could physically bar the words. _“Private thoughts, those are private thoughts! God in heaven someone has got to help you work on your filter,”_ I effused.

I finally made the connection between Cullen saying he’d seen me in the beginning and the blush that had grazed his face. I felt my own cheeks heat and turned away to hide it.

 _“It doesn’t show,”_ Cole said helpfully.

Thank god for that. _“Would it matter how many people hit me with abilities like that?”_ I asked Solas pointedly, eager to change the subject.

 _“Not in theory.”_ To his credit, he actually was doing his best to keep what I thought was a disproportionate amount of amusement to himself. Underneath that was a buried possessiveness I refused to look at. It was only because I was his kind and a woman. I couldn't blame him for that much, so long as he kept it in his pants, so to speak.

 _“‘Not in theory.’ A rousing endorsement if ever I heard one. I suppose the first time we fight a pack of templars, I'll just cross my fingers.”_ I said sarcastically.

I waited for someone to say something until the silence grew well into awkward.

 _“. . . Alright. Well then. Now that I've rent everyone's worldview and entire belief structure, I'll just go and find Josie now. See what damage I can do there, too.”_ I turned and walked toward Haven without waiting for an answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> . . . I'm a little worried that I'm at 63k words and they haven't even left for the Hinterlands yet. They're leaving next chapter, but still.
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> 6/19/17: Lore change. Increased appetite -> decreased appetite. Made sense that an immortal species would have slower metabolic function.


	12. Montage

**_9:41 Dragon_ **

_4 Wintermarch/Verimensis (January)_

_I managed to pantomime to Jo. that I wanted a blank book and something to write with. Then my Common teacher, a stodgy man who made the rafter up S’s ass look like a nano-splinter, had me ask in what I assume was scandalously butchered Common._

_S. told me the month - the common-use one (WM), not the original Tevinter one, because national pride, or fuck those guys or whatever, idk. Anyway, it's January. 4th. I wish that meant something to me. Not that it would make this any LESS weird if it was the same month where I come from. Maybe it would just make me sad, I don’t know. At least "this many fingers" is the same in any language._

_I've been barred from any translating so I learn the language faster. It's obnoxious, but I 100% agree. Exceptions for emergencies, obvs. In the meantime, I’m teaching the “team” a few simple phrases in English for stealthy combat communication. You know, like ‘duck’ and ‘behind you’ and ‘watch where you’re flinging your ice, you bald-headed twat.’_

_He’s not bald actually, which I expected. He just shaves his head like any mere mortal (haha). His hair is dark, and for a reason I cannot begin to understand, I really seem to like that. I saw him this morning with more than his usual shadow of stubble and there was. . . a FEELING. A. . . you know, body-type feeling. I felt filthy. . . . Alliteration!_

_In all honesty, this little team is really something to see. Like ‘holy shit’ something._

_I double-checked that S. couldn't read English by writing the filthiest, most lewd thing I could think of on a piece of paper (It involved the “c” word *shudder* Which one, you ask? Think of one and it was probably in there.) and shoving it in his face at random. No reaction. This whole 'hearing heartbeats and smelling emotions' thing is kind of the shit now that I’m getting used to them. I feel a little like a superhero, AND now I have built-in lie detection! Heart stutters? Increased respiration or sweat? Dilating pupils? Micro-expressions? Etc etc I have that shit COVERED._

_At least judging people later (. . .-_-) will be. . . well, harder to fuck up, at least._

_Cole can probably read all of this, but to be fair, he could also just pick it out of my head. I just asked him to promise not to pass it on to anyone and tried to explain the concept of privacy and why we care about it. I told him this will help me sort through things, and that if I’m worried other people will find it, I won’t be able to be as honest with myself. He seemed to get it._

_Anyway, I have first and second watch tonight. Everyone else is asleep and the fire is out (easier to see things at a distance and makes us less visible. I promised I’d relight it before I wake up the soldier who has third watch tonight. Idt Co. sleeps, but no no one has mentioned him taking a watch by himself. Which is probably wise, because. . . Co. <3) and JESUS the STARS. Billions of them, and they aren’t just white - they’re blue, yellow, orange, pink,champagne and gold, purple, and two of the new colors I’ve been seeing that I haven’t named. I don’t know any of the constellations, but I can see the edge of the goddamned galaxy right now._

_And the MOONS. I can’t understand why anyone would need a fire at all when they’re both out. I mean. . . you know, figuratively speaking._

_I think I’ll take these watches every night. I get time to myself, the world is so still and quiet, and I’d like to make a pact with myself to never again miss a single opportunity to look at these stars._

_Heard something. Just an animal._

_Anyway the teacher. Yeah, he lasted until the third time he hit my knuckles with a stick for getting something wrong. The first time I was surprised. The second time I gave him what I trusted was a universal expression for “do that again and I will fucking kill you.” So the third time he went to do it, I grabbed the stick out of the air and pinned his hand to the desk with it._

_I imagine the procedure to remove it went well. I was careful to only do soft tissue damage, and it didn’t splinter much when it hit the desk.._

_The odd thing? The fact that it doesn’t bother me that I did it doesn’t bother me. If it turns into a psychotic streak later, I can deal with it then. Right now it just feels. . . I feel like I’ve been let out of prison on the inside. Like I was bound and chained before all of this. I think I’m a little high from the “I’m so much stronger and better and smarter and faster and freer than I was,” but you know. . . I don’t want to deny myself that. I have the strangest feeling that I’ve fucking earned it. And that it should be appreciated while I have it._

_Anyway, Jackass’s assistant took over after the flesh wound, at my insistence. I had no interest in waiting for someone else to get here, and the only alternative was apparently bald-o._

_Eddard. We like Eddard. Honestly. . . he reminds me of Felassan, actually, which is sad and keeps putting this goddamned lump in my throat. He’s just so peculiar, and random, and unflappable._

_I’m betting he’ll be hilarious when I can understand what he's saying, too. I think he keeps making jokes, but everyone just sort of tries to pretend they didn’t hear them. In a *cringe that is the worst/lamest thing I have ever heard* way._

_His bosshole kept me in a room with books and shit. Ed., the first thing he did was take me for a walk among the people and started pointing simple things out to me, having me repeat them, then asking me to recall the word later by pointing to the same thing somewhere else._

_"Man, woman." "Sitting, walking, eating, drinking, laughing," stuff like that. Then later, short phrases like “he is tall, she is talking.” And I think he has enchanted pockets or something, because when I do something especially well, he gives me candy, which he seems to be constantly eating himself, and he NEVER SEEMS TO RUN OUT. If I didn't have a super metabolism, I think I’d put on a pound for every 1% of the language I learn._

_Like I said, we love Ed._

_He keeps up with the pace at which I want to learn, too. Which is impressive, because short of sleeping (him, not me. Turns out I sleep about three hours a night and omg Ed. is NOT A MORNING PERSON. Adorable bed hair and surly, incomprehensible muttering and all), we are at it 24/7._

_He drills me while we eat and while I train. I think he likes working me while I’m preoccupied, which is super smart. Ca. is using me to spar and Elden, who is apparently here to guard Ed. (I am dubious), always watches. She spends more time watching me than she does him, in fact. I think she’s studying. It’s. . . odd. But also not odd? (Sometimes. . . it’s like I have two personalities in my head. I’m trying to encourage the good one.)_

_F.H. Last night, he gave me his own sort of combat/skill assessment, and we have a rough plan laid out for my time in the Fade. Three hours there should be enough, but if I want to put in O.T. or just give my mind a rest, it’s not like I won’t have earned some extra watch shifts off now and again._

_Everyone assumes S. is still watching me. Ca. asked about it this morning, actually. S. covered for me. He lied. The few reasons he would do that are so divergent that just thinking about them gives me a gd headache._

_So F.H. Last night he couldn’t seem to teach me (remind me of?) new things fast enough. Which is to say. . . all he had to do was tell me, and I could do it. It’s like my memories - it’s there when something calls it up, just not any other time. Not when I ask for it just because._

_We both seem to like the fast pace, if for different reasons._

_He taught me some katas that I apparently used to enjoy, and my body seemed to agree when I went through them today/night.. They’re like Tai Chi, but for killing people. Which technically you could probably do with Tai Chi since it’s a martial art, except it’s supposed to be for defence. This. . . this is not as much for defence. And usually there are weapons involved._

_The katas are slow and graceful and trying - they relax me even while I can feel them working my muscles, and when I did them tonight, off on my own in the woods. . . it was like meditation. I felt my ara’lin, my mana, my energy, anything you want to call it, moving around me and through me like blood through veins, in time with the movements. I think it was one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve ever had, and it was like someone had taken a hundred pounds off my shoulders. Honestly I almost started crying for sheer joy and relief the moment I started._

_Great in another way is my stretching. The others do not agree, which is why it’s great._

_When we’re at Haven, I can do that sort of thing in private, but out here? If I’m not moving, I’m stretching. A lot of stretching involves legs. A lot of leg-stretching involves things that would be on the V.I.P. menu at brothels._

_I honestly didn’t think V. could blush. To be fair, I caught him off guard._

_Seriously though? Cirque du Soleil shit._

_I could kiss whoever trained me._

_. . .Except I get the feeling that I shouldn’t want to thank them for anything._

_The stars move across the sky. . . . I feel like I can hear them speaking._

_The other thing I seem to need, much as I don’t like it, is to be around other elvhen. At this point I think I’m only going to the Arbor Wilds for the principal of the thing, because being away from either S. or F.H. for too long is comparable to physical pain. It’s RIDICULOUS._

_These people. . . we? had some serious social ties bred into them. Which explains how they were able to war so ferociously. I don’t know what F.H.’s ultimate goal is, but one of these days I want him to explain to me exactly how he plans to make a society so designed for prejudice and classism. . . not horrible._

_One of these days. I’m not in a hurry for it, and he’s not exactly pressing the issue, either. It has only been two nights, though._

_We left for the H.lands yesterday (the day of my combat assessment.). I insisted. People had to scramble a bit to make it happen, but what are bosses [even when no one else knows they're bosses yet] for but to add shit to an already overfull pile and ask for it to be done yesterday?_

_I don’t like the feeling of making work for other people and then standing around doing nothing. It feels. . . slimy. I don’t mind being more or less in charge, but standing around while other people are working. . . it’s like someone’s poking me with a sharp stick to get me moving._

_I suppose my work will be harder in its way, and it’s going to look different from theirs. And I’ve only just started; knowing what I do, I should calm the fuck down and try to enjoy this slow pace while it’s here._

_I learned this lesson before I left (Sort of. Indirectly. A little, maybe.)_

_Everyone else was scrambling to get us ready, (men, horses, food, etc) and I had to. . . pack an outfit and some underclothes. And this book and pen. That took all of two minutes._

_I put on a cloak and grabbed a bite in a corner of the tavern. Figured I could soak up the language._

_When that got old, I nosed in on a bunch of men who were moving a shipment of crates to the smithy. Once I was sure everything was going to the same place, (and the men were all around the corner otw to deliver them), I picked one up to help out. I can move crates too, right? Language barrier-approved._

_It was empty. And I don’t know, made of bird-bone-like wood or something. So I stepped back and watched again, but they kept going to the same place._

_I figured the soldiers were just pacing themselves. I don’t have to do that, my ass is going to be on a horse for the next week. Muscle-wise, hat’s all lower body and core. So I stacked three and followed the trail._

_It’s amazing how fast a person can tell they’ve done something wrong/out of the norm. It really only takes one look from one person._

_Apparently I'd forgotten, or at least GROSSLY underestimated how much stronger I am than the. . . ugh, "quicklings."_

_So I set the boxes down and carried one at a time like a good normal(ish) girl, but the damage was done. Between that and the combat assessment. . .I’ll be fueling rumors for weeks to come. Well. . .more than I already would have. *slow facepalm*_

_By the time we get back, I’m sure I’ll have given them new and more ridiculous things to talk about._

_What can I say, I aim high. -_-_

_So if “memory” serves, it’s about 180 miles to where we're going, and our horses will make about 24 miles/day at a reasonable (for them) pace. So about a week there, a week back._

_Yeah, speaking of horses? I ASSUME it's 24 miles/day, because that's what a horse would make at a healthy pace. But these things? They are horse-LIKE. They have long, thick tails for balance, short-haired like the rest of them, but for a big tuft at the end so apparently they can still swat bugs? with a short, shaggy happytrail on the underside leading to them. They have cloven hooves, are a little more muscular (or that’s just the sort these people like, idk), and apparently they’re omnivores, because these fuckers have FANGS. Canines sure, whatever, but they are long, and they are POINTY. But apparently they still have that little toothless place in the back where you can stick your thumb if they don’t want to take their bit._

_And that is the shit I am talking about._

_The sky is almost purple. I assume means I'm seeing into the ultraviolet spectrum now._

_Birds are bird-LIKE (four wings, long and almost serpentine at the back, and they don’t move like dinosaurs). Plants and flowers grow. Food is still food: meat, dairy, root vegetables, spices, grains, and dried things so far, but it isn't carrots or potatoes or thyme or bay leaves, it's things I've never had. And god help me, they eat BUGS._

_I know that’s cool in some cultures. I did not grow up in one of those cultures._

_It's almost a little lonely, everything being so close to what I know ("know" -_-), but just. . . not quite there. It’s not quite different enough to be novel, to be an adventure, and it’s not same enough to be what’s familiar._

_Otherwise, it’s maybe odd how well I’m taking all of this. Maybe it’s because I’m in a body I don’t remember and a world that isn’t mine, so this all seems like. . . a vacation or something, idk. A departure. Except I have this memory. . . someone died, and it was the sort of someone I was supposed to be just. . . decimated over. People talked, I remember, about why I didn’t cry more or why I didn’t seem more sad. There were a few reasons for it, but mostly I think I wasn’t as sad as them because death didn’t mean the same thing to me that it did to them._

_Maybe this is the same. I feel like my brain has always. . . or at least in the last world, has always worked a little differently._

_Physics is still physics here, obvs ( universal law)._

_Evolution still seems to apply in that there's a purpose behind every shape and color and structure._

_The world is still plants, herbivores, omnivores, carnivores, scavengers, and decomposers. There are bugs and invertebrates. Trees, vines, grasses, flowers, fungus._

_Everything follows the same biological blueprint, in one end, out the other, eyes and ears and whiskers and heads above legs, invertebrates, bugs. It's like the OUTLINES, the rough shapes are all the same, but someone just picked a different color palette for some of the details._

_But it’s so RANDOM. Humans are identical from what I can see (probably shorter, but I’ve no frame of reference). Facial expressions and body language seem to be identical - I haven’t even noticed any cultural differences yet, but I err on the side of polite._

_Chess exists here. Chess. Identical board, identical pieces, identical rules. Cards. Books. Tables and chairs. Everything manmade is built around the rectangle shape. The wheel. Food has to be cooked, water purified._

_There must be some sort of connection between this world and the one I'm from - which means there are probably connections to a countless number of other "worlds," because no way would it just be the two. Maybe each dreams of the other. Maybe when we cast our minds or spirits around to imagine things, sometimes they come to places like this._

_What else. . . ._

_We have a team of soldiers and builders with us to head off the request for watchtowers from Bron. They watch sparring unless Ca. yells at them. More often she yells at them to stop asking me for lessons, though. I want Dennet with us ASAP. We HAVE the horse things, yes, but even if they’re the best the world has to offer (DOUBTFUL), we’re going to need a lot more soon._

_Bull is supposed to meet up with us if he gets to Haven before we get back, and I hope and pray that Z. will be waiting for us there, too. I asked Jo. to have a shipment of Bull’s Qunari drink and a supply of Tevinter red stocked in the tavern, and I wanted to have a Dawnstone weapon made for him, but apparently that’s way out of our budget right now, and I’m sure as shit not sending people off to become fertilizer for the GD red lyr. just so he can have a pretty pink thing to hit people with. He’ll get it when Lel. gets reports that madame mayor has started making moral compromises to keep the templars playing nice._

 

* * * * *

 

_5 WM/Veri_

_V. is making it his mission, his ENTHUSIASTIC mission, to teach me every swear word/phrase he can conceive of.  He even got the soldiers helping.  We were bonding!_

_(I was surprised - honestly I thought he was either a little afraid of me or just didn't know what do with me.  Thrilled to be wrong.  Or have him want to fake it for now.  Either way.)_

_And then Ca. got back from gathering wood and one look had them cowed and retreating.  V. kept going, bless his heart.  The more she scowled "covertly," griped, and made general sounds of displeasure, the more fun it seemed to be for him._

_It was so, so hard to be Switzerland (sort of, I mean I wasn't exactly telling him no) and not laugh._

_Holding myself back in combat is like a physical goddamned pain. By some questionable, dubious miracle the only opponents we’ve come across are from rifts, and I do make an exception to cover any spawning demons. There’s no reason to lose a single spirit if we don’t have to, same as I’ve asked that, when we do meet enemy combatants, mercenaries be left to last when safe and given a chance to boot.._

_I’m relegating myself to support (to El.’s apparent chagrin) - barriers, pretty much just barriers - and that helps me not try to do much. It’s fucking infuriating, it’s like watching a kindergartener slowly and carefully take five minutes to do something that you could do in about two seconds._

_I’m going to have to figure out a way to get the frustration out (haha insert sex joke)._

 

* * * * *

 

 _6 WM/Vir_  

 _I think the other horses are jealous of my horse. Not actually.  But I hardly ever ride the thing.  I just don’t get tired. I walk along with the others, then I get distracted and run off to look at shit, too.  I think Varric teased me the first time I stared at a flower for at least five minutes._

_Co. whispered in my ear, ‘You’d think she’d never seen a flower before.’  But I hadn’t.  Not like these.  Everything is new, and apparently I LOVE new._

_A couple more days, anyway, and I doubt Ca. and V. will even look at me like I’m an alien anymore.  Ed. is fine.  Oddly, El. is too.  She kind of. . . well I don’t want to talk about it.  Ed., I think the sky could fall around his head and he’d just look up and go “well fancy that.  Ok, what’s for brunch?”_

_I might have snuck off with some of the dried herbs we use for tea and rubbed them all over myself.  I don't think it will do any good - it's not the SMELL that makes him gag - but. . . but.  I’m drinking the stuff like a fish, too.  An innocent, strategically-directed puff of air to “cool it off” elicits the most delightful face from S., even when he’s trying to be polite and hide it._

_I need to be c_ _areful, though.  I know damn well his good humor, the consideration that’s miles beyond what he’d give anyone else, won’t last forever.  And that man. . . I do not want to get into a catfight with him._

_I would LOSE._

_So back to my overland adventures._

_I'm like a mountain goat and a cat and a monkey and idk what else all rolled into one._

_I don’t have to bathe, I just magic myself clean.  Same with brushing my teeth.  And drying my clothes after I wash them.  I figure that stuff isn’t so fancy that I have to hide it.  They all know my magic is strange anyway; as long as we stay away from "horrifyingly dangerous," I should be good._

_A team favorite has been my consideration, on hot days, of putting cooling runes (THANK GOD I DO NOT HAVE TO LEARN THEM AGAIN, I would set something on fire.  On purpose.  Probably also on accident.) on their waterskins.  That earned me points.  So does starting the fire every night and reheating beverages, though that one I’m picky about because I’m not a goddamned kitchen appliance.  I also call up a little breeze when we’re sweating, but no one besides S. knows.  I’ll probably have to stop when the other mages join. I should ask. F.H._

_. . I haven’t found anything yet that my ara’lin doesn’t give me when I want it._

_F. told me I've earned points with "the men" by insisting on taking two watches every night, too.  But A) I am literally only doing it for selfish reasons.  Well mostly.  Sort of?  The selfish reasons are a nice side benefit, at least.  And B) I'm not going to sleep anyway, so it's not like I'm going out of my way.  But that, and that I help set up and take down. . . .  He had to point out that to them, I would look like some weird elven noble before I got what the big deal was.  I'm a noble, maybe a god?  (GOD -_-) but not lazy.  I could see how that would get points._  
  
I don't necessarily want that sort, but that one I need to suck up. 

_Part of me is going to miss not speaking Common.  I laze around the campfire in the evenings (and GOD in the mornings *swoon*) and listen to everyone else talk, but I know I don’t have to respond or pretend I’m paying attention.  It’s kind of awesome - I can be around them, but I don’t have to be WITH them.  Maybe I am part cat.  Maybe I’m like a Frankenstein’s Monster of awesome stuff._

_When I think about not having to care, about just BEING. . . .  I think that in my old life, that was not the case._

_The more parts I get of the picture of what I was, the more I get the feeling that I should do everything I can to never remember._  

 

* * * * *

 

"So, I had a thought."

[Hm?]

He was curled around me and we were watching ribbons of the Borealis trail through the night sky. “Well. . . I don't remember elvhenan. All my memories seem to be physical ones - combat, magic, my ara’lin’s familiarity with you - except for memories of the life I came from.”

[The one in which you were a human,] he said, and I could tell he was suppressing a laugh.

I elbowed him hard in the ribs. "My point is. . . what if I'm not her? What if I’m not your friend?" It was a testament to how damnably comfortable I already was with him that I wasn't afraid of suggesting this. I could fight the feeling, but it was like trying not to see anything when someone had your eyelids pried open. "What if I'm whoever I was before, the person I remember being, and I just sort of. . . stole her body? What if whoever gave me the mark just plunked me in here?"

[A reasonable theory,] he said, eyes still following the colors that spanned the sky above us. [But for your ara'lin. They are unique to each elvhen, and as we change, so do they. You are different, but your soul is the same.. You are Nuaelan. If you were not, you would not feel as you do.]

". . . And that's foolproof, is it?"

[Yes.] There was not a shard of doubt anywhere in him.

My brows drew together. "Well that's weird. Because I haven't noticed any difference between you and asshat."

Something stirred under his calm, like a whale moving to breach the surface of the ocean only to change its mind at the last possible second. [. . . Perhaps that is because you have met no other elvhen. When you do, you will see the difference. Solas and I may also be very similar.]

I snorted. "Yeah, ok. And I'm Vivienne's twin sister." I didn't miss the fact that he had said "when" I met other elvhen, not "if." But he didn’t know about my plan to go to the Sentinels. I hadn’t told a soul, so there was no way he could.

Which probably meant he knew every detail.

[Who is Vivienne?]

I waved a hand dismissively. "We haven't met her yet. Pray you never do, because if you _are_ anything like Solas, you’re going to want to flay her."

He was quiet for so long that I settled back into the comfort of him.

[Why do you dislike him so?]

I made a disgusted, exasperated sound. "Why does it matter?"

[You do not know him, but you clearly did not care for him from the beginning. What has he done? Does he remind you of someone, or of something?] Again that strange stir in him.

"Perfect gentleman," I deadpanned, counting on him to cede to the utter disdain I felt for the topic.

[Is it something you 'remember' of the future? Something he has yet to do?]

I leaned forward to look into one huge, sky-blue eye. Since that first night in the Fade, he had stayed snow-white and his eyes a rich, saturated light blue.  "Why do you care? Do you want us to be BFFs once your plans swing into motion or something? Do you have a crush on him and you want me to put in a good word? Because if you do I will tell you right now, I refuse to be your best man."

[You know you’re using terms I do not understand.]

“And you know you talk like a stodgy old person. BFF is best friends forever, a crush is romantic interest, and best man is a position of honor that a groom, who is a man who is getting married, gives to their best and most trusted friend, counting on them to help in any way needed up to and through the marriage ceremony and after-party. The joke is that the best man is, wait for it, typically a man.”

He flicked an ear but otherwise gave no reply. Then his eye swiveled up to meet mine, then turned away.

[It. . . is something I do not understand.] he said, answering my question about why he cared what I thought of Solas.

 _That_ was something I could understand.

"I don't either,” I admitted. “Leastwise, not in a way I could explain in under an hour. The very short version is that he sets something off under my skin and every time I see him, I pretty much just want to hit him. But I feel bad, too, because I know how alone he must be. And his past and future are such blank spots, and he’s the _only one like that,_ so maybe it's like being annoyed at a puzzle I can't solve when I'm used to finding them easy. I don't know."

It was an incomplete answer, which he read from me but, thank every god that ever was, he let it drop.

[You have not told me of how you came upon the mark.]

I snorted again. "Fen'harel _please,_ my first night here you knew what the bedroom I had gotten hours before looked like. You've either stuffed half the Inquisition with your agents or you spend a questionable amount of time watching spirits reenact every mundane detail of Inquisition business. You could probably recommend a better beauty regimen to me.” Had I one to begin with, anyway. I planned on getting products when I could. “I’m not sure whether to be condescendingly appreciative, or annoyed that you pretend you don't already know.” Of course I chose appreciative because it made me feel much better about him. It was ultimately foolish, but sometimes foolish decisions were necessary for the sake of sanity.

He chuckled. Apparently wry humor was not a new trait of mine. There was something comforting about that.

My hand stilled in his fur.

[Little One?]

". . . If you know that much, then. . . ." Then there was no point in trying to keep anything from him. Which meant there was no reason to keep his eye away from my people.

"Do you think we could start spending our nights near someone? My Commander is prone to nightmares, and if he's sleep deprived, it won't do anyone any favors. I figure we can stay close enough to make sure his dreams are calm, but far enough away that we can still do what we want in our own space. Would that be doable?"

[Certainly.]

"And it wouldn't make him a target? What with, you know, my fan club?"

[Your what?]

“M*ther f*cking idioms,” I cursed under my breath. “The demons that are after me,” I said.

He prompted me silently to take us there as he answered, and I did so. [We are essentially a blank spot in the Fade. Invisible. He will be fine.]

 _"Shit!_ I cried, jumping to my feet. Cullen was dreaming of torture at the hands of demons, so horrific that I had to look away. His cries had me doubling over.

Fen'harel stood, almost as “small” as a normal wolf, and pressed himself into my side. [Calm yourself,] he admonished, kindly but firmly.

He was right. This was the Fade, and I knew better than to go flinging panic into the ether like bait.

[Reshape it for him.]

"I don't. . . how?!" I caught myself that time and closed my eyes, letting the worst of the panic shake to the surface and drop away like old skin. "How?" I asked, tight and urgent, but controlled.

[Good,] he rumbled, and radiated approval. [Feel the nightmare, the flavor and shape of it.]

Right. Then find the part of it that is me and reshape that part to what I wanted.

[Exactly,] he rumbled, calm and steady, but encouraging.

In seconds, the nightmare was gone, and Cullen was standing on the dock near his childhood home. He looked bewildered, but I extended to him a sense of calm and certain safety, the same sort of random, undeniable feeling you'd get in a proper dream.

When I saw him calm, I drew a relieved breath and sank down with my shoulder against Fen'harel’s foreleg.

[You care for him,] he said in a tone I couldn't read.

"I care about all of them, Fen. I know them intimately. I love them."

‘But this one is different,’ he felt but didn’t say. He felt disdain and concern. Before I could address it, he said, [Except Solas.]

 _"Oh my god **what.**_ Do you have a crush on him or something? Do you want me to introduce you? Because really, Jesus, man. And before you get all worried that I’m attached to them, may I remind you, I _was_ one."

But this was too close to the conversation I didn’t want to have. So I urged him to summon me an opponent - his were still infinitely more skilled than mine - and though I felt the piece of him, a hair louder each time, that wanted to talk about what was coming, he obliged.

"I'm debating how much of my power to show to the others," I said as I ducked under a swinging arm and tried to get around behind the phantom elvhen."

[If you can talk, you're not working hard enough.]

"Maybe I'm just that good," I quipped.

The phantom warrior instantly became about three times stronger and four times faster. I had to pay attention then.

I came away from the fight with a few cuts - I insisted on realistic practice - but won in the end and turned back to him. I was literally becoming the equivalent of a mortal army unto myself. I caught whiffs sometimes that it worried him. I leaned on the sword I was holding. "On the one hand, it would make everything infinitely easier.

"On the other hand, I'm worried it will disrupt something. Sethius is going to come looking for me, and it would probably be better if he underestimated me when he did so.” Too much of a display would make me a bigger target, and I wanted him as predictable as possible. After Haven, that might change. I might even be able to end things then and there. If I could just figure out whether that was the right thing to do.

[. . . What is your question, exactly?] 'You seem like you just answered it yourself,' he didn't have to say.

". . . Huh. None, I guess." I stood and swung the sword up to rest on my shoulder and walked toward where he lay, as majestic as any of his statues. "I think it's just nice having someone I can talk these things out with. You’re not scared of me, or leaning toward forming a cult around me. With you, I’m just a person,” I said simply.

He wanted to make a joke, but with everything he'd been through and fought for, I didn't blame him for abstaining.

"I guess I'm not used to people who are so. . . primitive? Their science is so basic compared to where I come from, their understanding of the world so small, that they just jump so quickly to the mystic for explanations. That's not _bad,_ I just. . . don't know how to work around it, I guess.

“I don't want to hold myself in. I don't want to pretend to be something I'm not. I don't want to do _less_ good than I can, but. . . god I feel like I'm walking on a line of eggshells and if any of them crack, a glass floor will shatter, and the stupid world with it. I have power and magic they don’t understand, tied to a force of destruction they don’t understand, and so of course the logical answer must be that I’m god-sent. Did you know some of them were saying that I was the literal daughter of their God even before I left Haven?" Rhetorical question. Of course he did.

I had wondered at first that it had even been _possible_ for elvhen to war with one another when everyone could so perfectly understand everyone else. But really, rather than promoting compassion, it would have just exacerbated any differences that were there. All we did, mortal or immortal, was look for reasons to get pissed off and indignant at anything “other,” it seemed.

[Do not underestimate the power of faith,] he cautioned.

“Oh, I don’t,” I said darkly. “And that’s exactly why I know how much of a problem this is.”

[Better you be the focus of it than many others.] He paused. [You are less likely to forget yourself.]

“. . .Is that why it meant so much to you to have me around in the end? I mean, I know how powerful it can be to have someone near who knew you when you were younger, but was that all it was? Or were you worried you would turn out like them in the end?”

[I would have been foolish not to consider it possible. I loved power just as much as they, for a time. I saw the People as just as inconsequential.]

“. . . Did you really? Or is it just easier if you simplify things that much? I don’t think you’re lying, mind. With what I ‘remember’ of you, you would have been a grade-A asshole. But the urge to see people as equals, to do good, doesn’t come from nowhere. So where you a monster who was reformed, or were you a good person who allowed himself to be blind? Social norms are a powerful influence, even to someone with a rebellious and contrary nature.” I had the bitter taste in my mouth of feeling that I was speaking from experience.

[What difference is there in the end?]

I considered. “In the end, none. In what history will say, none. But in the making and the execution and so, dear friend, in the _future,_ in choices? That difference is everything. Motivation matters in the present. Motivation is what makes the people whose actions end up black and white in the history books.”

[I cannot pretend to have a grasp of how the consequences of our actions can end up changing the world,] he said quietly.

And yet here he was, gearing up for round three of what he _knew_ would change everything. I wondered what the magic number would be, how many world-shattering mistakes it would take for him to stop trying to fuck everything up and hope the ash settled into a shape he found acceptable. I wasn’t sure that limit existed. Not for him. He was the furred embodiment of hubris.

We sat together in silence for a long time. I just turned my face into his dense coat and rested my forehead against him. I listened to him breathe, I followed his heartbeat, until I felt like I was with a piece of myself, rather than another person. This was the sort of bond elvhen were capable of. This was the sort of bond he had overcome to help the people beneath him. Some day, I would ask him what exactly he had thought the outcome was going to be when he literally split the world in two.

Something tugged at my attention - another nightmare was taking Cullen - and I looked up.

Saints take me, this time it was _me._

My image towered above him, warped and beautiful and furious and golden, and it pointed down at him, damning.

 ** _"You have been judged,”_** it declared in a reverberating voice, _” **Cullen Stanton Rutherford, and--"**_

I cut the vision off there. When he looked around, confused again, and sweating, an idea occurred to me and on impulse, I went with it.

I returned the vision of me as it had been before, but normal-sized and gentle, rather than terrifying and warped.

It walked forward on bare feet, white robe billowing ridiculously in a nonexistent wind, and gently put both hands to Cullen's face, pausing for a moment when he flinched away in fear.

“Wait,” I breathed, wide-eyed as it moved, “is that what I actually look like?”

[You don’t know?] Fen asked in surprise.

“I’m not a narcissist” I hissed in a whisper, “I don’t go looking for shiny surfaces, so no.”

[For someone claiming to have a new body, I would have thought you curious,] he said, far too noble to actually be arch and sarcastic. Except that it was arch and sarcastic.  [That is what you look like, yes.]

“. . .Jesus,” I breathed. Suddenly some of the stares I got made more sense. They weren’t all the right kind of curiosity or speculation or watchfulness for a maybe-herald. People stared at me because I, because this, _that woman,_ the one standing in front of Cullen? She didn’t look real. She looked like she had just stepped down from a palace in the clouds, in the heavens.

[Without the golden aura, of course. And your complexion and hair could use some tending to.]

“Right,” I said, and human ears wouldn’t have heard it. The pieces of conversation our first night about me being “made” wafted around in my head like passing bubbles. Made like this, trained as Fen’harel said I was, and he didn’t want to be the one to tell me about what I had been. There were few reasons I would need to deliberately have the skills and build I did, and every one of them was troubling.

The specter of myself pulled me back to the world when, still gently cupping Cullen’s face, she spoke in a beatific, melodic voice. _"And I would tell you I forgive you. But there is nothing to forgive,"_ she said softly. Her thumbs gently stroked his cheeks, and I realized, really realized for the first time, the danger of a Dreamer, because I made the _feeling_ of what she was saying sink down as truth, past his bones to the very center of what he was. And I hoped, prayed, that I was doing the right thing.

 _"You have made mistakes, as every man must,”_ she said. _“But you have done your best at every turn, and you have paid for your mistakes. Do not torment yourself. Please,”_ she supplicated. _“You are a good man, and I am honored to know you,"_ she finished softly. Then she leaned forward, angled her jaw, and pressed a long, soft kiss to his forehead.

Silent tears were streaming down Cullen's face, and I wrapped my arms around Fen'harel's foreleg and held on against a swell of emotion. Somehow, it felt as if she had been talking to me, too, and dark things swirled the the depths of me.

Cullen and the phantom looked at one another, the truth, needed and so long overdue, passing between them. I knew the power that just one person forgiving you could have, and when that person had seen the darkest places in you, the parts you feared the most, and still said those words? It could change everything.

Cullen put his hands to her face and, as if she were the most precious, fragile thing in all of creation, leaned in and kissed her full on the lips.

I went stiff and wide-eyed.

I sputtered when the kiss deepened and he pulled her into him and wrapped her in his large frame.

When they began undressing one another, slow and gentle, breaths coming heavy and hungry and fast, I made some sort of inhuman, high-pitched noise and moved us to another part of the Fade.

". . . I think he'll be good on his own for the rest of the night," I said, beyond dazed.

What the ever-loving shit had I just. . . . That had just been because he was grateful. Dreams were metaphors. He was. . . he was embracing her because she was the representation of the _message._

Even the part of myself I was trying to lie to knew that was bullshit. It was true, sure, but that had _not_ been all that was there.

Maybe it had just been a really long time since he’d had sex.

Maybe true. Still bullshit.

[It seems your affections are mutual,] Fen'harel said, entirely too smug. There was a knife underneath that I filed away, but ignored.

"Oh you shut your stupid furred face, you asshole. This is not funny," I hissed.

There was no world in which he would approve of a quickling aspiring to have an elvhen.  It would be tantamount to cardinal sin.  A disaster a hundred times worse than Felassan, and he would guard me with particular ferocity.  I felt sometimes like I was all that was left of him.  Not the General, but the man.  Like he was using me to hold on to something he didn't want to lose, and I was afraid it was the last of the piece of humanity he allowed himself.

He knew the quicklings were Real.  If he didn't, he wouldn't have to guard so ferociously against the idea, and act so unforgivably if it took root.

[On the contrary, I think it's hilarious.]

"Bullshit you think it's hilarious. Thank god I'm on the road and I don't have to look him in the face tomorrow. I might literally die on the spot. Now shut up and give me something to hit."

[No, your magic needs more work.]

“Then give me something to hit _with magic!”_

 

* * * * *

 

_7 WM/Veri (morning)_

_. . . I had a dream about Cul. Well no, he had a dream about me. I. . . ._

_That is all I will be saying on the matter. It was a dream, it was a dream, it was a dream, and I will say that as many times as it takes for me to believe it. Sweet Mary mother of god._

_So anyway._

_That frustration I mentioned? Not really an issue anymore._

_F. has me create opponents for myself in the Fade and fight them to re-familiarize myself with what I can do. He’s trying to cycle me through every type of opponent, fight, trick, and thing that could possibly go wrong, including ones I won’t find in this world/time. I pretend not to know why he’s doing it._

_So I get to give it everything I have in the Fade every night, and that seems to be enough. For now._

_To be honest, though, my power. . . . it's. . . ._

_. . . Staggering._

_I’m keeping it from everyone. The only way to keep a secret is to ensure that only one person knows it. I trust F. with it, but I won’t take chances with the others. Knowing what’s at stake, I even let myself not feel bad about it. Aware, but not bad. They’ll be pissed at me later, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is the right decision._

_I hear too much of F.H.’s reasoning in that._

_So far my combat style is: fast, efficient, no frills. No wasted movement. Get them disabled and downed as fast and simply as possible so you can move on to the next one. It is immensely gratifying, satisfying. . . ._

_F.H. has started helping me link certain smells to certain emotions, too. I feel like a have a fast-track tutor, and it’s awesome, and I’m afraid some sort of accrued debt is going to be implied somewhere along the line._

_So far, though, I think he’s just getting me ready._

 

_Not morning!_

_I suggested to F. that we use me as bait._

_Hoards of demons are after me in the fade, it wouldn’t take long to find one. And whoever is after me would have them split up into ones, twos, or threes, who call to the others when they find me. I have literally the best body guard a person could in the Fade. So I said let me wander around, you stay close, and when one of them comes for me, you nab it and we ask questions. Because apparently he’s been looking into it every night, and he can’t find shit, which is just a whole new level of troubling._

_He was, shall we say, recalcitrant. He basically told me "I'll keep that in my back pocket," but it was only to shut me up. I can't figure out if he thinks I'm stupid, or just a pushover. He wouldn't tell me WHY he didn't like the idea, but I didn't even have to ask, nor do I intend to let this go._

_See. . . there seem to be two F.H.s. One is the one who lives in my head. The strategist, the General, the hardened man who lives under a mask and exists only for the mission. This man will do anything it takes and betray anyone._

_The other is a PERSON, and I didn’t expect that. He’s the one I keep seeing every night, and it’s really screwing with me, because I know that the F.H. in my head exists just as much as the F.H. who I spend time with every night. He’s keeping back because he knows I don't remember._

_It’s where the line blurs between the two that I’m having a problem. If I side against him after Seth., he’ll fight me as sure as he would anyone else, if I make him. I know that. But if I side WITH him, what’s going to be left when this is all over? Will any of the man survive the cost of millions of lives, of destroying two worlds?_

_There's so much he won't tell me, but aside from that, it's like. . . the only wall is one of courtesy, only just flavored by caution. He WANTS to be closer. But I am so afraid of him, and I don't know why._

_. . . But I'm not AFRAID of him. I'm afraid of my heart getting hurt by him. Because I don't know. . . . I don't know._

_So we, dare I say, "snuggle" with one another while he shows me pieces of elvhenan. Sometimes I show him things I remember of my world. We train, in magic or combat or Dreaming. We discuss lore and history._

_. . . Somewhere, in a corner of my heart that I really don't want to look at, I love him. And that is terrifying. Because I know what's coming._

 

* * * * *

 

He was showing me one of Elvhenan's larger cities at night. Felassan’s lit streets were there, striking patterns softly lit to show you your way. Every plant was manicured, every light a wonder. The water of every fountain was crystal pure - some some clear, some golden, some warm like sun or silvery like moonlight, some shifting. Spirits of every conceivable size and shape moved as freely as the elvhen, some humanoid, some animal-like, some nowhere near either. Its beauty was so pressing, I couldn’t speak for a long time.

No one was homeless. No one begged, no one was sick or in need. But it wasn’t all perfect. The vallaslin were there. Slaves were more numerous than citizens. But no matter station, they all looked at once alien and familiar, and it was a warm familiarity, a comfort. They were taller than humans, powerful and exquisite and so graceful that just seeing them stand was like watching a perfect dance.

Just like Thedas, just like the world I had come from, elvhenan ran the spectrum of good and cruel. All Fen’harel wanted to do was trade one set of benefits and costs, one set of compromises, for another. I was perhaps the most receptive audience he would ever get - aside from like-minded elvhen - because of the way I saw life, energy, and the world.

This was another night we would not discuss it.  There was time.  A few months, at the very least.

“If I asked, would you tell me if you were in the Inquisition?”

To his credit, he actually thought about his answer. [Not at the moment.]

I nodded as we walked past a pavilion. It sat tall as five stories, four broad pillars and the graceful ogee arches so prevalent in elvhen architecture holding up a domed ceiling. A single statue of a graceful woman, face and one hand raised to the heavens in supplication, stood in the center. Hung above her from the dome were numerous strands of what looked like warm, delicate stars, and graceful off-white flowers. She was so realistic that I could see each gently curved eyelash.  We moved silently through the streets and walkways, unseen by the spectres of the past.

[Why do you ask?]

“You know so much about it that you shouldn’t. No spy should have been able to show you what my room looked like, for instance. And if you want to dream the history of a thing, don’t you have to physically be there?” I walked with my hands clasped comfortably behind my back. It seemed to amuse him, like an inside joke that I didn't remember.

[Not if you are powerful enough.]

"Ah," I nodded indulgently, "I see. And are you powerful enough?” I asked with false lightness.

He laughed, pleased, and I couldn’t help my answering smile.

“We called them ‘fairy lies’ where I come from," I explained. "Lies that aren’t _technically_ lies, but that no idiot would call the truth, either. Partial answers, misdirection, saying one thing but meaning or referring to another.”

[You were quite skilled at it in elvhenan.]

“More, training, I suppose?”

[We made the mortals’ “Game” look like children quibbling over broken toys.]  'Elvhen' we, not he and I we.

“A horrifying picture if ever I heard one. How did people lie, though, with the ara’lins, and the sense of smell? I’ve been wondering that for a while.”

[We did not have your sense of smell. You can detect the smallest nuance in feeling. The rest of us were relegated to the stronger emotions - fear, hatred lust.  Nothing you couldn't see plainly, or suss out, had you the skill. And there are ways to lie with an ara'lin, just as there are ways to lie without lying in speech. To do it well and believably took natural talent and an immense amount of skill and practice, however. There were strict rules of etiquette about ara'lins, and mastering a polite amount of control was something every child or newly-made learned quickly. Only the Evanuris kept theirs tight around themselves at all times.] His tone turned derisive. [They claimed it was because they were too powerful for anyone else to perceive. Generally speaking, however, it would have been tantamount to cutting off an arm. They were simply as natural to us as eyesight. Why would you gouge out your eyes?]

“Graphic comparison, but effective. And a convenient lie on the part of the 'gods,'” I said appreciatively. “I’ve been wondering about that, too, though.”

We entered into a large, round botanical garden and I had to stop moving. Flowers bloomed like gemstones, plants grew naturally into abstract shapes and definite forms, pictures, and the air was lit with tiny, glowing bugs. A three-tiered fountain in the center gently flowed with what looked like stardust. The closer I looked, the more detail I saw: even the veins in the leaves grew in graceful swirls and patterns. My breath caught.

Fen’harel gently rested his jaw on my shoulder, and I was too absorbed to lean into him.

After a time, I don’t know how long, the cold of his nose brushing my cheek pulled me back. It took me a couple breathless tries to speak properly, my eyes still glued to the miracle around us.

“The elvhen were immortal," I said, tearing myself away but still sounding distracted. "If the evanuris had lived today, I could understand them transitioning people over the generations to believe they were literal gods.  But how exactly did they manage that when what I assume was a large percent of the population had literally been alive the the evanuris were just like them?  And they didn't all come to power at once.  June and Ghilan'nain came later.”

He laid down on the softly glowing tile of the ground and silently invited me to join him. Its colors played against his white fur, filtering through the parts on the ground like it was a gauzy curtain.  I took up my spot leaning against his ribs, and he draped his tail over me like a blanket.  The tile was surprisingly soft and comfortable and welcoming.

[The Evanuris were very old, and they did not fall into their positions. They were won, purchased, and stolen over many tens of thousands of years.] I shivered a little at the reality of the number. These people - our people? - had lived to see ages.  Not ages of man, but ages of the <i>Earth.</i> [Elvhen are immortal, but we are not made of stone.  We change, like any race today, just much, much more slowly. That is how their godhood was shaped. FIrst as an idea, then as a whisper, then as a hint, then a movement, a doctrine, and eventually as dogmatic law, both spoken and unspoken.

[What do you know of the Forgotten Ones?]

“Nothing. I have an idea about them, but I don’t, you know ‘remember’ anything,” I said with air quotes.

[What is your idea?]

I considered my words. “Well, the Dalish legends, from a certain angle, aren’t wrong.” I felt his ire rise, but continued speaking before it could boil. “If you take everything they say backwards, and the rest as thick metaphor. You were the evil betrayer of their ancestors,” I said with sarcastic drama, “the evanuris were the benevolent saviors. Things like that.

“So I thought of the Forgotten Ones. . . well, you were on terms with them comparable to the terms you were on with the Evanuris, that seems reasonable enough. You were never _evil,_ no matter how fickle or frightening or punishing you could be, so I didn’t see you hanging out with them if they were as nasty as the stories say. You could have, sure, to keep them close, but given how the stories tend to exaggerate things and how staunchly dogmatic they are. . . well, and with a small piece of writing attributed to one of the Forgotten Ones about refusing to bow to the lie of the gods - parts of which I very much like, by the way - it seemed more reasonable to me that they were nothing more or less than enemies of the evanuris, and that, even more, they were people who refused to buy into the story and worship them.  Not stepping in line with the lie seems to be  all it took to make someone a villain in the dalish tales.”

[Just so, Little One.] His voice was quiet and fond. Proud, even. He thought some of my memories must be leaking through whether I realized it or not. Aside from acknowledging the possibility, I didn’t believe that.  When my mind even touched the idea of the world I had come from, I felt a sense of familiarity, no matter how vague.  I had no such feelings about elvhenan.

[Do you remember the writing?]

“Sure.”

He wanted me to tell him.

I shifted against him. “‘. . . There are no gods. There is only the subject and the object, the actor and the acted upon. Those with will to earn dominance over others gain title not by nature but by deed.

I am Gelgauran, and I refuse those who would exert will upon me. Let Andruil’s bow crack, let June’s fire grow cold. Let them build temples and lure the faithful with promises. Their pride will consume them, and I, forgotten, will claim power of my own, apart from them until I strike in mastery.’”

[. . . And what is it you agree with in those words?]

It was a test. I just didn’t know of what kind. Fen’harel was fond of his tests and, as ever, the only way to truly pass one was if the correct answer was also an honest and genuine one. I gave him a look to let him know that I knew exactly what he was doing before I answered. “The part about there being only the subject and the object.  And to a lesser extent the acted and the acted upon.” I couldn’t say the words without mangling them, the very idea of trying to speak them negating the meaning, so I only felt. I felt what amounted to: ‘I think that is the nature of the universe. It is the Truth.  It is God.  It is everything and all of us.’

“I doubt that was what he meant, given the context,” I said, “but I can’t pretend to know.”

[. . . You have truly changed.]  His soft voice was quiet, but thick and loaded with something I couldn't begin to identify.

It wasn’t a criticism and it wasn’t a compliment. But somehow it left me feeling uneasy.

 

* * * * *

 

“How much of what I can do will be undetectable by normal mages? I mean, how much can I hide from them?”

[In theory, any work of magic advanced enough would be something they would not be able to understand. After a certain point, they would not even be able to detect the presence of it.  Finding that threshold would require trial and error, however. Better to err on the side of caution.]

I tilted my head back far enough to see his face, upside down. “Did I learn that from you? Because it’s like my credo sometimes. 'Better safe.' 'Better safe than sorry,' but 'Better safe' for short.”

[You learned from many sources. Who can say?]

“Evasive asshole,” I muttered under my breath.

All I got in reply was fond amusement.

 

* * * * *

 

_8 WM/Vir_

_I earned more points tonight._

_There was a river. I went wandering around when camp work was done and everyone was digesting their food, and I made what looked like a natural pool. With convenient natural seating. A real gift of nature, you know? Then I put down two runes: heating on the inflow and cooling on the outflow to set the water back to its natural temperature so as not to dick with the ecosystem.  I felt like a mad genius._

_I showed Ca. & El. and our one female soldier first. The way El. looks at me is starting to. . . well. Whatever. We soaked. It was. . . fuck it was glorious. I need to find out if these people have massage._

_It’s so simple. You dunk yourself into hot water. And yet it is practically ORGASMIC. I can’t imagine how it must have felt to the others. Ca. at the very least is conditioned to a physical life, but four days on the road will do it to anyone. Sitting on a horse is surprisingly tiring._

_Or so I hear. :D  Remember.  Or so I remember._

_Ed. has been focusing me on things I’m likely to hear or need to say given where we’re going, but I'm just bracing myself to more or less come off like a cave person._

_Good thing I’m pretty! :D_

_-__-_

_One of the taller men dropped a log on my foot.  It was the corner that got me.  I could tell it was going to bruise badly, maybe a bone bruise, but it didn't hurt that bad.  I mentioned it to F. and apparently when he was telling me about myself?  Yeah he left some things out._

_A muted pain response is one._

_Apparently I can also expect hunger, thirst, tiredness and need for sleep, and the need to relieve myself to be muted.  So basically I need to figure out what my minimum requirements in all of those areas are, or I will literally kill myself on accident.  No problem. SINCE I'M IN A BODY I KNOW SO WELL._

_We had words._

_And I don't believe for a second that he "forgot" to tell me._

_If he's smart, he'll pay attention to how exponentially less amused I'm getting with each one of these little tests or surprises or whatever the hell it is he's doings. . . es._

 

* * * * *

 

I had been expecting bandits and knaves every twenty feet or so, but we were almost to the Hinterlands and all we had seen were six rifts and a mess of refugees. I gave away my bedroll and most of my food. I’d have given more if I’d had it.  I saw a couple of soldiers follow suit later when they thought no one would see.  I asked V. their names, and I'll remember them.

I had smelled humans and felt mages away from the trails and packed-earth roads along the way, but if they were bandits they left us well alone. Not that I could blame them. Cassandra rode like a human fortress and we had twelve fully-armored soldiers with us, four for each watchtower. I had almost gotten adjusted to the smell of body odor and bad breath when I learned what eleven men and one very large woman sweating on horseback in full suits of armor could smell like after five days in the sun. I found flowers or pungent herbs in the mornings and tucked them away, then rubbed them on the skin under my nose regularly. It helped.

We were stopped for the afternoon to let men and horses rest and eat. Cassandra and Varric had gone to find water. Solas selflessly abstained from joining them to hover nearby and just out of my line of sight. There was a strong breeze, and I carefully kept it between me and the rest of our party. Elden ate near me and Eddard was sitting with the soldiers, laughing at something and making the others look distinctly uncomfortable.

The wind changed. It smelled of humans and elves. Dirty, tired, underfed, long-stressed and desperate. It smelled of adrenaline and fear and aggression and anticipation, metal and old blood. It was coming from the direction Cassandra and Varric had gone in.

 _”Shit!”_ I uttered tightly, and before anyone could blink, I was off and running through the forest fast as a horse over a smooth field. They jumped up to the clatter of dishes and gear and supplies and followed, but they were slow, so slow, too slow.

I hurtled over logs and brush and rocks and slapped branches out of my way. When the underbrush was too dense, I took to the trees. It was old growth; I jumped from branch to branch on single feet and swung myself with strong hands.

They were in an open field, and the first thing I saw was two men pinning Varric down and one driving a dagger down toward his sternum.  It would go right through his armor and nick his heart. It was an inch from his chest.  Cassandra was holding two withered but still huge men back with her shield and swinging her sword around to deflect a blow from a two-handed mallet coming at her from behind.  The angle was wrong - it would slide down her blade sending her cross-guard into her fingers.  It would break at least two of them, and likely her wrist. The mallet's path would take it to the bottom of her ribcage, and the breaking bone would nick a lung and puncture her liver.

There were no thoughts, in moments like those. There was only action, a revealing of who you were. In an instant, seventeen people, dirty and underfed and desperate, were turned to stone.  One of them hadn't hit puberty a year ago.  Another, a man, had carried the smell of tears and an infant.

I froze, horrified.

I was standing on a branch in a tree. I considered just turning and disappearing, not present of mind enough to realize why that wouldn’t do me any good. But Cassandra’s practiced eyes were already sweeping the area, and they found me. My jarred and horrified expression would be confession enough.

I dropped lightly from the tree, eyes sweeping the frozen forms, looking at their faces, just as Varric had carefully inched himself out from under the point of the stone dagger. He couldn’t get out from under the statues pinning him, though.  He called for help.

I turned them all to dust so fine that it was swallowed by the afternoon air. Cassandra and Varric I could trust to keep this a secret. The dozen or so others trying to follow my path through the woods, not as much.

The field empty, I suddenly realized _what_ I had just done.

I put a hand to my mouth. I sat down heavily. I stared, wide-eyed, at nothing, as it settled in my bones like piles of weights, heavier with each second.  My skin was tingling.

I heard the first sounds of our people at my back as Varric and Cassandra slowly made their way up to me.

“Herald?” Cassandra asked, unsure and concerned.

"Holy shit, צרות, what עשו you do?" Varric asked in a stunned, subdued voice.

My eyes darted aside toward the sounds of our peoples’ approach.

I looked up at them. “No talk,” I said, my voice pathetic but firm.  I nodded to the field behind them to make it clear what I meant. “This. No talk.” I repeated, vehement, looking both of them in the eyes.

They nodded, Varric slowly and Cassandra after a pause.

 **"Promise,”** I demanded.

Again they nodded. “אנחנו promise, צרים,” Varric assured.  He sounded like he was trying to talk someone into handing over a loaded gun.

The sounds of approach were growing louder. I had maybe two minutes before they got here.

“I need,” I said slowly, casting for a word that would fit what I wanted to say. “Walk.” My voice was not steady.

“מה this your ראשון להרוג?” Cassandra asked. Her voice was so gentle I knew exactly what she must be asking.  I did not have the starch left to answer.

I opened my mouth to speak. Closed it.  Tears threatened to spill over despite myself.  “I need walk.  Big,” I said again, and got up and jogged off over the nearest hill.

 

* * * * *

 

_9 WM/Ver_

_First blood._

_I'm taking all three watches tonight._

_. . .I can't see him right now._


	13. Purple and Brass

I sat in the middle of the field through twilight, watching as colors shifted and spilled onto the clouds and grasses and wildlife. I listened to creatures foraging, hunting, bedding down for the night. I lived through everything that happened again, letting myself feel, understand.

I'd had no choice. I knew that. I also knew that eventually I would have had to kill. I knew it likely wouldn’t be easy. I just didn’t expect to be caught off guard by it, not the first time.

 _I_ stayed back. I protected, I watched the field. This had happened in an instant. I didn’t regret it. But that didn’t mean that it wasn’t heavy, it wasn’t Big, that it didn’t hurt.

Seventeen people were gone. I had probably orphaned at least one child. Taken husbands and lovers and sons and brothers. Invariably at _least_ one of them would have been a total prick, but these were times people clung to their tribes; each person lost would be sorely missed by someone. People may die without the return of one of the men I had killed.

But I wasn’t god; I was a small creature, acting in small ways, and if I stood back and did nothing, refused to press forward, refused to force the world, and so refused to kill. . . what, exactly? The world would carry on. Even if I fixed it, eventually it would tear itself apart again. It was a cycle every society went through, and it was a cycle that would never stop. If I forced a solution now, it would still crumble later. People would rebuild from the rubble stronger than they had been before.

Ah, but if I did nothing now, there wouldn’t be a world left to rebuild.

That meant pressing forward against opposition was Right Action. At least the decision could be easy.

So people were going to die. If I could mitigate the consequences or make reparations later, then I could. Outside of that, if I thought of it, if I allowed my mind to follow the tracks and lives down every fork they might have taken, I would lose myself. I was not the type to lose myself.

So. I had killed people. It was done. It would happen again. It hurt, I was sad, but I would acknowledge that sadness, honor it, and let it rest here with the men who had taken this innocence from me.

I would walk on, and continue trying to keep my eyes open. I would do the best I knew how in every moment, and in the life of a single person, that would be enough. Because it _had_ to be.

Because every alternative was worse.

When the last of the sun had been eaten by the horizon, I took the trail back to camp. I could see almost as well as I did in full sun.

 

* * * * *

 

The moment people began to wake and leave their tents in the morning, I tied up my bedroll, laid out in the open as I liked it by someone last night, and wandered off. I wasn’t keen on getting caught any sooner than I had to.

As soon as the hour would excuse it, I began tending to the horses. Provided I chased away the men whose duty it was to ready them this morning, it was something that could keep me occupied until it was time for us to go. The system of halter and reins, and saddle and stirrups was all the same in concept as what I knew, and early on one of the soldiers had walked me through take-down, grooming, and saddling, with Elden along to help with words.

Between them, the soldiers and companions had shown me the how of almost everything they did. Even if they couldn't or wouldn't walk me through it, they still let me watch. I was curious about anything and everything they would indulge which, given who I was, tended to be anything I asked for; I was careful not to get in anyone's way. My apparently boundless curiosity was to Solas’ infernal approval, which tended to lead to my surly annoyance.

The party as a whole seemed happy enough to indulge me, especially once they figured out that I took the new information running. It was fair to help out, and surprising that they didn’t expect me to even carry my own weight. In Haven I could understand, but on the road and in the field? No wonder everyone hated nobles. No wonder even other nobles hated nobles.

Cole had vanished days ago without a word, and at the moment I was not sad for his absence. I didn’t want to be comforted; I just wanted to process until it was time to move on. I figured he would come back when he thought we needed him.

I didn’t eat breakfast - the others couldn't wrap their head around the fact that I just didn't need to and kept dishing me up single bites as if that was some sort of compromise - and no one bothered me as I worked, but I knew from the small number watching me that Cassandra and Varric had kept their word about the specifics of what had happened yesterday. Aside from the extra attention from the core group, however, everyone respected my desire to be alone. Even Eddard gave me space, and it was literally the first time he had payed me that consideration. He had tried to follow me out to bath the first time I’d gone like it was the most natural thing in the world. Cassandra had glowered him away.

The worst that morning Solas. I could tell what the others were doing from sound and smell, but I could _feel_ him fixated on me. He was trying to leave me alone, but he couldn’t hide the fact that his attention was on me even if the rest of him was pretending to focus on something else. He was worried. And under that, he was curious, like a scientist watching an experiment, or someone waiting to see if a dud firework was still going to go off.

By the time most of the tents had been taken down and packed - I retrieved gear and secured it to the mounts as it was ready - I had had enough.

“Solas,” I said, openly annoyed. Cassandra and Varric, Elden, and Eddard all stilled by different degrees. _“Put it away,”_ I barked in humorless English. After that, I got no more from him than I did from anyone else.

The absence of his presence was as much an ache as it was a relief. I used the pain to help me focus.

I got the soldiers’ looks throughout the morning. Some of it would be them figuring out that I’d taken all three watches. Some of it would be my continued denial of food. Likely they had heard some of what had happened the day before. But I got the most when I calmly mounted my horse with a practiced motion. I had ridden part of the day we left Haven, but not once since.

The novelty wore off quickly for them, but Eddard kept to my side. I imagined today would be something of a relief for his mount - the poor thing had been keeping pace with the other horses _and_ following me on all my meanderings so Eddard could keep up his steady barrage of words and prompts. He knew the name of every plant and creature I stopped to examine. The green had been steadily increasing as we traveled; there had been plenty to see.

I cooled waterskins and armor and boots as the sun moved overhead and did my best to listen to the bits of chatter from my place at the head of the column, but my mind kept wandering. I had tried to start the day behind the soldiers, but it had been clear I was expected to lead, and it didn’t take long before I moved just to avoid a discussion.

Just as our shadows were disappearing under us, we reached the Inquisition base at the outskirts of the Hinterlands. Gray and deep crimson mulled everywhere, bodies rushing from duty to duty, standing and crouching in work or brief conversation. People came forward to take our horses.

I was not the diplomat I should have been. I tried. I smiled politely, nodded, gave out the simple greetings I had been taught, but there was no life behind any of it, and it was obvious that others noticed. I should be doing better; these were the first people outside of Haven that I was making an impression upon, it was too important to be. . . moping. But I couldn’t put myself together enough to pretend better. Not in the middle of so many people. It was too much, and the feelings I had dealt with the night before had not had enough time to settle and melt away. The pain now was metallic and clenching.

This would be the story of my life over the coming months. I knew I had to do better. But I would allow myself this one, just this one.

We passed a station of messenger ravens and I stopped. There were three of them resting on a wide perch; they were surprisingly large, streamlined things, the first birds I had seen that looked like actual birds, and in design much like I had expected. Inky feathers, semi-serrated beaks, livid red eyes, and I saw a striking intelligence - almost an awareness - looking back at me. One of them cocked its head to the side and blinked at me.

“Cassandra,” I said.

She stopped and turned to me, a hesitantly hopeful look on her face, like she was eager to encourage any sign of life.

I nodded to the ravens. The curious one was hopping closer to me. “I need. . . talk. Leliana.” I pantomimed sleeping, pointed to the raven, and said, “Ask.”

She glanced from me to the bird, then nodded and moved off to speak with the handler. I pretended not to notice the veiled look of concern that flashed over her face. She would have seen people go through this before; it would pass. So would my mood. Something in me rebelled at the idea of brushing it off so easily, and I hoped I wasn’t missing something, some pain I had yet to acknowledge. They festered like splinters buried deep in your ribs.

In only a moment, the raven handler was scribbling a short message onto a miniscule piece of parchment, tucking it into a black tube that sat in a small harness resting under the birds' feathers and matched them perfectly, and it was sent off. I watched as it grew smaller until Eddard gently placed fingertips on my back to urge me forward. The touch was brief, but I realized it was the first time anyone had touched me outside of the Fade, or Solas in the war room.

When we met Harding for her report, I managed a polite nod and a slightly larger forced smile than I had with the soldiers and scouts. She didn’t seem to find anything odd about my behavior, and I attributed it to the rumor that I was noble. I was starting to understand Blackwall's vitriol toward them.

I listened blandly as Harding spoke, picking up the odd word here and there - I could tell Eddard had asked her to speak slowly and use simple words - my eyes glassing over with my thoughts. Images of the faces of the men I had killed and the fragments of story I had picked up from their clothing and scents. There was a twist in my stomach, chased up by confusion.

When Varric started to say something that sounded amused and pleasantly surprised, I whispered to myself “Harding in High Town” in time with him. It was a good joke. So was Cassandra’s passionate noise of disgust. Even without his ara’lin, Solas’ abrupt surprise at my words was obvious. I supposed even having heard some of what I knew, seeing it in action must be a very different thing.

Like a changing breeze carrying a hint of scent, I suddenly felt something - the same way I felt my ara’lin, and the same way I felt magic. I straightened to attention and life, interest, presence of mind went into my eyes as they tracked the feeling. For the first time all day, I genuinely cared about something. The others noticed.

I couldn’t help myself, rude as it was - I walked away from the conversation, following it like a woman possessed. As I passed scout Harding, my eyes far away and brows creased in concentration, she stopped talking.

“Herald?” Solas and Cassandra asked at nearly the same instant. Solas let his ara’lin out; weak and stuttering as it was, it was like someone taking covers off their ears when it’s suddenly vital that they hear. He felt more solid and real the moment I could feel it again.

I came to a stop at the gently pointed edge of a steep cliff. A short, ancient fence sat at its edge like safety against the seventy foot fall done in lip service.

 _”Do you feel that?”_ I asked when Solas came up behind me. I was dazed, and far beyond caring about the integrity of my linguistic training.

‘No,’ his ara’lin said. ‘I’m concerned,’ it said.

I craned my neck, trying to see around an escarpment and into a massive copse of spring-green trees where the feeling started to get stronger, like scent as it neared its source. My periphery vision told me the slope below me was varied and littered with loose stones, nearly sheer most of the way down but broken up by small flats and gentler slopes of grass.

Cassandra was talking. I wasn’t even pretending to listen.

 _”Trust your body,”_ a voice, not my own, whispered through me, and I knew it was true like I knew too much heat would burn and gravity pulled down.

 _”I’ll meet you all down there,_ I said absently, then gracefully stepped off the edge and dropped from their sight.

I heard them cry out and the rush of feet as they moved to peer over the side, but I was already twenty feet down, maneuvering in controlled slides and quick descents as nimbly as any mountain goat. Cassandra barked at Solas, what sounded like an order.

I landed gently on my feet at the bottom on a carpet of silken-soft grasses, and without pausing, without a backwards glance, walked steadily toward the source of the pull.

Harding made what sounded like a droll, amused comment. Cassandra barked out quick orders and her, Varric, Solas, and Elden’s feet hurried away. There was the creak of leather and the smell of horses, then fast hoofbeats moved down a trail.

Before they caught up to me, they had to abandon their mounts to get into a dense tangle of trees and underbrush, long ago overgrown with vines. They called out to me. When I didn’t pause, Cassandra took my upper arm in a firm grip, pulling to get me to stop. Solas casted something at me, but my ara’lin brushed his magic away and I walked right out of Cassandra’s bruising hold.

Elden darted into my path, blocking me. I stopped and looked up at her determined face calmly.

“Herald--” Solas began.

My eyes darted toward him and back to Elden. _“Move,”_ I said, still speaking English. Her determination hardened. I canted my head at her.

 _“I feel something,”_ I said simply. _“I want to follow it.”_

“What את you מרגישה?” Solas asked. “Magic?”

I glanced in his direction, but not at him, and gestured to my ara’lin. That was what I felt. I didn’t have the brain power or patience to spare to try and explain further.

“In my ניסיון ,כאשר you go lookאת מוזרה ,חזקה magic כי מתקשר you, אליולא נגמר טוב,” Varric said. “Magic. Go. Bad.”

A muscle in my jaw twitched and I silently urged them to hurry it the hell up.

“Solas, what מה she talkהי א?” Cassandra asked.

“I אנילא בטוח. She כמובןמרגיש a למשוך ,כלפי משהו אבל it ייתכן שיהיה צורך do with her האופי ייחודי. I לא מרגיש כלום.”

My patience was being whittled with every word. Elden watched as I leaned out to look around her, my eyes too intent. She stepped to the side to block my line of sight again and held her hands out - 'Wait. Please.'

My face hardened and my ara’lin swelled in warning like an angry cat. Blood drained from her face and her heart was racing, but she stood her ground.

“Herald,” Cassandra said in a deliberately calm tone. “Please talk כדי us. What הוא you לאחר?”

I weighed forcing my way through - comically simple, but with consequences - against wasting more time trying to explain.

Easy decision, in the end.

I cocked my head to the side and grinned at Elden. Faster than she could follow, I spun around her and was on my way again. I was still walking, still letting them keep up so they wouldn’t make this more difficult later, but I put up with no more attempts to stop me, darting away from outstretched hands and blocking bodies and eventually even tripping feet. At an order, Solas expelled an intentionally weak bit of magic at me, but it was turned to nothing by my ara’lin.

Murmured words this time, then I heard Varric unstrap Bianca quietly and picked up the smell of a sedative. The tiny bolt shattered against my ara’lin.

The smell of them feeling disturbed, laced with growing worry and fear, was enough to drown out the smells of loam and decay and growth.

 _”Stop,”_ I said, half to myself for all the attention I had to spare them. _”I’m fine. I just need to know what this is.”_ It was mostly true; I doubted any force in heaven or on earth would have stopped me at that point.

The others whispered among themselves and eventually fell into a coiled silence as they kept pace.

When I finally came to a stop, I realized I had been jogging. I wasn’t sure when I had even started speeding up. The others were all sweating and winded when they reached me, except for Solas, who was doing a convincing job of faking the latter.

A clearing, no bigger than the size of a desk or small table, sat in a shaft of light, and at its center was a statue, life-sized, of a fox. Its surface was rough, its detail worn smooth over many, many years, and it _sang._

I walked up to it while the others exchanged whispers again, and crouched down. It sat, calmly at attention, tail curled around its feet as if hiding something there. A piece of myself was reaching out to it, as though whatever was in the statue was literally a piece of me.

I cocked my head to the side, hands resting on the ground between my knees as if I were some sort of animal, too, and in a way I was - reduced to senses and instincts with no room for anything else.

It sang and sang and sang to me, until the forest fell away and the voices of the others vanished.

Two words broke through, though, as I slowly reached out and felt its magic explode toward me when my fingertips neared.

Solas, calling out. **“Herald, stop!”**

I touched the cool, rough stone; everything went white, then black.

 

* * * * *

 

I woke on a dark, hard, pleasantly warm floor that was polished to a mirror shine. With a fed up, almost tantrum-like groan, I got my hands under myself and carefully pushed up to stand. I felt tightly bloated and like I didn’t fit in my own body.

I was in a large square room near a wall on my right hand, bare but for a truly massive fireplace on the wall behind me, the flames inside shaping themselves in a myriad of cool, shifting colors and soft shapes. In the center of the room sat a white throne made of some sort of rock or mineral, draped with black furs atop a dais in the very center of the room. It faded in a flawless gradient from the deep, almost black color of the floor at its base to the snowy white of the throne, creating a stark contrast and undeniable focal point. The walls were painted with mosaics of elvhen and. . . wolves. Black and white.

A chill went through me, and that was how, through the feeling of too much pressure in my skin, I realized that _everything_ felt different. It was the way my ara’lin felt, but magnified a hundred times over, a thousand, more, and it was _everywhere._

A feeling of dread wrapped its way up my spine and into my throat.

And then I heard a heartbeat. Steady, thick, calm, and close nearby.

I turned my head to the corner of the room directly ahead of me to see a man, dressed in an artfully lazy way, come through a door-shaped hole in the wall that I hadn’t heard open. He held an icosahedron made of rich wood and glowing with runes on every surface. He stared down at it, engrossed as if reading.

He was humongous. Taller and broader than any man I had ever seen, but lean and fit. His hair was long and straight, thick and gloriously deep brown, shaved on one side of his head. The rest was draped over his shoulder and tied loosely near the ends, groomed but almost wild-looking. Loose trousers that draped heavily sat low on his hips, plain but for the fact that they looked to be spun of muted, soft moonlight. A thick fur stole hung loose and wide open over his otherwise bare shoulders, a little reminiscent of the one Cullen wore, and long strands of it teased away from the rest, brushing over the lithe, sculpted muscles of his torso. His wrists were clad in wide cuffs and something long hung around his neck, a small sort of charm at its apex: a long, glowing blue surrounded by what looked like curling silver, but more radiant.

He was so different - even his face, in a dozen subtle ways - that I didn't even realize I knew him.

Solas.

I went cold, and a tremor vibrated over me, there and gone in an instant.

If the setting, if the magic, if the _air_ had not been enough, his face was the damning last piece of the picture, and it wiped my mind clean until it was nothing more than sand waiting for the tide to come in.

This man, this Solas, was different from himself but for a few key features. He looked like the elvhen I had seen in the ancient city Fen’harel had shown me, and he was clearly younger, and wild. Predatory, apex. A weight was gone from his features, and they were smoother. Easier and more open. The same nobility was there, but it sat alongside arrogance, announced rather than contained. “My” Solas’ quiet, understated confidence was cockiness on this man, almost swagger. The teeth he hid but was not afraid to use were here bared for anyone to see, and they were as apparent as the now vivid blue of his eyes and the perfect hairlessness of one side of his scalp.

I was dangerously close to loathing Solas. But this man? I would want to choke this man within seconds. The fact that he was undeniably handsome and inarguably alien only made me more angry and put me even more on the defensive.

His tongue toyed at the tip of an impressively sharp canine as he studied. . . whatever it was he had in his hand.

Then his brow wrinkled and he sniffed at the air absently.

He looked up and stopped. He arched a brow as his eyes darted over me from hair to toes.

I swallowed. “. . . Hi?” I tried. There was disbelief, futile hope, and a heavy amount of caution in my voice.

He was not surprised to see me. Bored and annoyed, but not surprised.

That man, _**that fucking man** knew me._ I was not a stranger to him now, which meant that when I had met him, he had known exactly who I was the whole time.

My temper flared and with it, my ara’lin lit like a fire in an oxygen tank. I had never felt anything like it, and it was immediately wiped away because all my attention went to the struggle to reign it in.

Solas rolled his eyes to himself and went back to his toy. “તમારું નિયંત્રણ, તે બંધ કઠણ કરતાં વધુ સારી છે. અને જો તમે તમારી જાતને નાના મને રમૂજ પમાડવા કરશે બનાવવા વિચાર્યું, તમે ખોટું હતા.”

I stared him, managing to look struck dumb and annoyed at the same time.

He glanced up again, took in my bewildered expression, and said something else. It was clearly amused and, if I had to guess, not entirely kind.

He looked back to his toy again and went on in a bored tone. “તમે અહીં હશે તેવું માનવામાં કરી રહ્યાં નથી. મને ખબર છે તમે નવા છો, પરંતુ હું ભાગ્યે જ વિચાર્યું હતું કે તમે મૂર્ખ હતા. તમારા સૂચનો સરળ હતા. બહાર જા.”

It was perfect, fluid elvhen. I remembered shouting at him that I didn’t speak it.

 _“Yeah I. . . I have no idea what you’re saying, Solas. And for the record, you’re a giant asshole,"_ I added with happy impunity. _"I'm clinging to the ridiculous hope that this is an impossibly elaborate dream,” I added, looking up and around. “Maybe there was some crazy hallucinogen on that statue."_ My eyes landed on the ‘throne’ and I sighed heavily. _“But I know that’s not the case. I’ve just had a long day. I've had a long two weeks, actually. I'm tired of weird shit, I'm tired of being asked to deal with weird shit, and this takes the fucking cake. You have no idea what I'm saying, but if you did, I'd tell you that that's really saying something.”_ I finished blithely, taking in the room again as an excuse to keep my eyes off of him.

He finally looked up at me properly. His own eyes swept the area around me as if he could see my ara’lin, and he arched that same damn brow. “તમે એક વિસ્તાર તમે મને એક નવી જીભ દર્શાવે કહીને હેઠળ હશે તેવું માનવામાં કરી રહ્યાં છો જાતે મદદ કરી? મામૂલી નથી. પ્રકૃતિથી વિપરીત જઇને જેથી.” An understanding and veiled attention had sparked to life under his veneer, and his eyes grew fractionally more sharp. Anyone who wasn’t me or didn’t know him well probably would have missed it - it was well concealed. But Solas was starting to pay attention.

 _“I don’t understand what you’re saying,”_ I over-enunciated, as if he was being an idiot. I knew what had to be going on - there was one logical, if completely "impossible" possibility. I just sorely, _dearly_ wanted to be wrong.

He looked at me like I was an uncooperative toddler, and with a bored wave of one hand, a citrus-and-sunshine orange light shot out of me, blazed across the room, and went into him.

He opened and closed his mouth as if tasting something he didn’t care for. _“What is this language?”_ He asked. _I don’t care for it. It’s cumbersome and. . . stodgy.”_ He wrinkled his nose when he said it.

I was too nonplussed to appreciate how hilarious that should be.

 _“But I suppose I'll play. Now,”_ he purred, and in a blink he was standing in front of me, herded my back to the wall, and planted one hand on it next to my head. He leaned in, cat-like, and I craned my neck back until it, too, was stopped by the wall.

 _“What has happened to you, da’lan, hmm?”_ He hummed, warm breath washing over my face. His eyes were molten and if you could intentionally produce pheromones, he was doing it. My mind went immediately to our kiss in the Chantry - but he wouldn’t know about that. He was only doing this now to toy with me, to manipulate me, and thus I watched the last of a lit fuze in my head burn down past the lip of its bomb.

My face contorted and I hit him with a force spell like a cinder block to the gut. He grunted and staggered back, and I slammed my fist into his nose. It broke with a satisfying crunch.

One of his hands went to his middle and the other to his nose, a grin spreading on his face. When he looked up at me, blood on his gently probing fingertips, he was _smiling._

I hit him and I broke his nose and it made him _happy._

 _“. . . Are you a masochist?”_ I asked, incredulous, one lip half-curled.

 _“On my better days,”_ he said, voice low. He gave a twitch of fingers and a cool red light flared and died over the places I had hit him. His nose was perfect and bloodless after it had gone. _“I might like this new side of you.”_ He hummed.

He swept my ara’lin again where it swelled around me, still massive. I half expected it to break apart and disappear, but it was stronger for its size, not flimsier. _“Provided you don’t try to adopt it permanently just because I said that,”_ he added condescendingly, eyes sliding back to my face and his smile going so cocky and arrogant that my temper _exploded_ outward until it felt like I was filling most of the cavernous room.

His pupils contracted and his nostrils flared. The rest of him locked down to hide any reaction, but I had seen it: white, paling shock.

He took it in with a slow sweep, and then looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time. That hint of sharpness in his eyes turned to knives, and I saw a whole universe behind his pupils. He took in my face, my expression. _"How is it you carry my scent, Little One? I certainly have not marked you."_ His eyes skimmed lower and slid down my arm to land on my marked palm. _“ And how, da'lan, did you come upon **that?”**_ He asked, voice quiet, conversational, and utterly veiled.

 _“Stop calling me that,”_ I snapped.

 _“. . . There **is** something different about you,”_ he said speculatively with a cant of his head, as if he hadn't already implied as much three or so times.

 _“I changed my hair,”_ I said flatly.

He hummed into a smile, wide and toothy. _“No. You didn’t.”_

He took a step back toward me and I flung up a barrier. It went up like a spark to alcohol-soaked tinder, and I had to scramble to pull it back from cutting through the walls and ceiling. Using magic here was like running over an open field when the only way you had moved before was through neck-deep mud.

 _“You come with a new language, a small form, **and** new tricks,”_ he said as if pleased. I couldn’t tell if he was. This was chess-playing Solas, so everything I saw was likely a mask. _“It’s impressive. I think even I would have to concentrate to break it. For a moment or two, anyway,”_ he added, cocky. He cast a glance as if he could see it, too, and I felt it shudder, a tingle going down my back.

 _“Knock yourself out,”_ I said, voice cold. _“Personally, I hope you do get through. There’s a prize waiting for you on this side.”_

His ara’lin unfurled just enough to ask the question for him.

 _“Your broken jaw,”_ I provided darkly. _"Besides, you won't crack it,"_ I bluffed. I might pay for it later. I was out of my element, and Solas was in his prime.

He was still looking up and around at the invisible wall. _“We shall see.”_

I watched as he studied my spell, apparently content to do so in silence for the foreseeable future - an elvhen in the time of the elvhen. He approached and brushed his fingertips over the surface. I felt tiny pricks and tugs and testing prods. His face remained a neutral mask, but focused. Because I knew him, I could see the interest there, too. In any time, Solas would have loved something like this: new magic, a puzzle, a question. He must be terribly easy to bait if you knew what you were doing.

Whether it was to distract him or myself, I finally asked. _“Where are we?”_

 _“My temple,”_ he answered simply, absorbed in his task.

I hid my surprise. But... actually, that would explain a lot, if Solas had been a priest of Fen'Harel. Keeper, if I had to guess. What I would call a High Priest. If that was the case, this must be Fen'harel's main temple, assuming he had more than one. Or Solas did the rounds now and again.  

 _“You don’t say,”_ I deadpanned. _“I meant in the broader sense.”_

_“Near the north sea, just east of the borderlands.”_

I gave him a ‘hello, keep going,’ look until it made him glance up.

 _“. . .In Elvhenan,”_ he said as if I were mentally deficient.

The bottom dropped out of my stomach and a choking lump formed in my chest.

I slid my eyes closed.

He looked at me fully. I could feel it like I could feel his ara’lin. Rather, I could feel it through his ara’lin. _“Are you broken, little toy?”_ He asked in that condescending tone. _“Do we need to take you back to Daern’thal?”_

 _"Do I look like a fucking toy?"_ I snapped, entirely suicidal challenge in my eyes. I scowled at him until something pricked at my memory. I had heard that word, ‘Daern’thal.’ It had been in the dreams I’d had after calming the Breach, one of the details I had lost as I woke.

My eyes narrowed. _“Is that a place or a person?”_ I asked, tone deceptively calm.

He half-tilted his head at me. _“A person?”_ It wasn’t a question. _“I had hoped to not have to see him for at least a few hundred years yet, but something is obviously wrong with you.”_ He looked me up and down like I was a defective piece of equipment or a hideous piece of art. 'I hate you less like this,' the rest of him said.

I bit back an angry reply and instead asked, _“And Daern’thal. He. . . made me.”_ I had to force the last words out. I prayed, prayed, he would say no.

Finally, he gave up on any pretense that I was playing. He sobered utterly, and I got his full attention. _“Yes,”_ he answered simply. Something about the word and his expression was probing. He had changed, and it was like he was talking to someone completely new now.

I let my eyes slide closed again, and my ara’lin rushed in like a protective shell.

Daern’thal was the name of one of the Forgotten Ones. This Solas had no reason to lie about it. I had been created by a Forgotten One, and it was obviously not so simple as ‘here, spirit, here is this body I made for you. Come, live among us.’

And now I knew that Solas and Fen’harel had had close ties in Elvhenan. They had either shared homes or, more likely, Solas had been a devotee. Given his personality now, I could understand that. But he had been responsible for me, too. I had been a secret; Fen would not have let just anyone know about me, let alone have what was obviously such a familiar relationship with me as this Solas did. And for some reason, it was important to both of them that I not know they had been - were - connected.

I had known they were both lying to me. I wasn’t stupid. But it hurt finding proof that Fen'harel had been.

As I thought about the two of them, this collusion and the secrets being kept from me and the possible reasons for all of it, something in my mind swirled and started coming tog--

A sharp pain lanced through my head like a screaming, deafening sound, so loud that I couldn’t hear my own involuntary cry until it started to subside. My hands were clutching my head, and I struggled to stay on my feet.

Solas had hurried forward and put a hand on my arm - I didn’t know when my barrier had dropped. I wrenched away from him and stepped back, and breathed carefully until the last of the pain subsided.

 _“What happened?”_ He asked sharply, and at least for the moment, all of his masks seemed to be gone.

 _“I don’t know,”_ I managed. But I did know. It was a mental block, a wall, and something about Solas and Fen’harel had triggered it. What could it be about them that--

A half-strangled cry that I bit down on immediately tore from me as pain lanced through my forehead.

 _“Da’lan,”_ Solas said firmly, scolding. Like he had a right to be scolding.

 _“I told you not to call me that,”_ I snapped. I held a restraining hand out. _“I’m not your fucking da’lan, or da’len, or whatever, Solas, and you sure as shit aren’t any hahren of mine. I’m not **anything** to you, get that through your stupid, idiot bald head right now.”_ I would tell him that as many times as I needed to in as many times as I needed to. _“Besides, I know what caused it now. I’ll be fine.”_

His ara’lin uncurled as if a big cat opening its eyes and looking at a trespasser. _“. . . Who are you?”_ He asked. It was a serious question, but not a threat. Not yet.

I looked at him, brows drawn together. _“What do you mean, who am I? I’m the fucking tooth fairy, who do you think? Do you want to pretend you don’t know me **now?** Mr. 'time to take you back to the store because you're acting funny?' Of course I'm acting funny. I'm not supposed to **be** here.”_

I knew what he meant, but I wasn’t especially interested in handing him - in the future or right now - anything. Especially not after this round of bullshit revelations.

There was everything I knew, and there was everything I had realized in the last ten minutes or so. My favorite was realizing that Solas hadn’t needed to cast that language spell on me in Haven. He had spoken English for thousands of years before the Conclave.

I could buy the idea that time wasn’t a loop and that my trip here hadn’t happened for the Solas of my present, but for the fact that it was Solas, and if there was a fucked-up secret to hide, he was hiding it. Or there was the fact that now I knew the language spell was so simple it should be able to be cast just fine in Thedas by someone of his skill, and it sure as shit didn’t require close proximity or open mouths or physical contact.

At least now I understood why he had been looking at me like he was waiting for something when we met: he was. He had been waiting for me to recognize him.

Charming as he had been in this time, perhaps he had been waiting for the punch to the throat he felt certain must be coming.

 _“No,”_ he said speculatively. _“I know you are. . . Little One,”_ he said carefully, obviously stopping himself from saying ‘da’lan’ again. This must be a time before I had chosen my name. _“But you are also very obviously not._ તમે પણ લોકોની ભાષા નથી બોલતા.”

I scrunched my brow up at him in annoyance.

He liked this me. He liked her much, much better than whoever I was in this time, in fact.

Too much better. An interest was sparking many deep layers down from the surface.

I nearly snarled at him in reaction. My ara’lin didn’t have as much control. I was not upset by that.

He huffed a laugh and held out a hand to me as if he was extending a great boon. Like he expected me to run to him with stars in my eyes. I looked at his outstretched hand like it was made of rotting sludge, and him like he was absolutely mad. I had never been so glad to not remember my past, because apparently in this time, I had practically worshipped him. H--

A warning sting lanced through my forehead and I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth against it. When it subsided, I couldn’t recall what I had been thinking that had triggered it.

He saw it flash through my ara’lin, and he saw it leave. He looked at me a long moment, and then Solas grinned, feral.

With no warning, something pulled inward at my gut. I looked up at him in accusation, but his face had gone white with shock. He let the still-glowing object in his hand drop to the ground with a clatter and leaned sharply forward as if either to run or fade-step toward me, mouth open to yell something. I didn't get to hear what.

The world flashed out, Fade-green, like the Anchor but flaring over everything.

The light cut out sharply, abruptly, and I was lying on my back on the forest floor, gasping, limbs shivering, pain lancing through my forehead and looking up at a blue sky and overstuffed clouds. I shot up – or tried to. A hand held me pressed to the ground.

Solas leaned over me. “You צריך stay down, Herald,” he said firmly. Worried, it sounded like. One of his hands was over my gut and a gentle glow from his palm was just fading. The glare of the Anchor was livid even through the gloves I had taken to wearing to hide it. The fox statue sat opposite Solas, as un-magical as any other piece of stone.

I shoved his hand away, chest heaving, limbs shivering, and rocketed to my feet, both hands wrapping around his throat and bringing him with me. _”You lying son of a bitch!”_ I roared. He was strong, I knew that now; his neck wouldn’t snap, and I was _livid._

The others started shouting, and I distantly felt hands trying to pry me away from him. They were like leaves brushing against me.

 _”Can’t speak my language?”_ I yelled. " _ **Have to use a spell to understand my language?** Why the fuck did you kiss me?”_ I bellowed.

The others wouldn’t stop yelling. _”Tell them to shut up,”_ I ordered unkindly.

He hesitated. I squeezed harder. When his voice came out hoarse, I eased my grip on his vocal cords.

His words had only a momentary affect, but my ara’lin took care of the rest. It was wide and angry as a stormfront, and the others began to back away from me, though they would have little idea why.

 _”I needed to know how much you remembered,”_ Solas croaked, and I felt sharp, satisfying vindication hearing English from him. _”You weren’t responding any other way, I had to. I needed to push you.”_

 _ **”Liar!”**_   I cried, inadvertently tightening my grip on his windpipe. His face was going deep red. He wasn’t fighting back, and that felt appropriate; his hands gripped my wrists but did not try to remove them, and whether the act was to placate me or keep up his guise of “weak” modern elf I did not care.

‘I can’t answer if I can’t breathe.’

I bared my teeth at him and let his face start to turn purple before I threw him down and away from me in disgust.

 _”If you talk to me like I’m stupid **one more time, Solas, I swear to god. . . .”**_ I shook my head, unable to finish the threat. It was clear enough. My voice was quieted, but it was lake ice cracking underfoot.

For the first time, I could believe I had existed in elvhenan, and not just logically. Because this woman? She was not me, and she was not who I had been. She was a new face.

_“I don’t know what you remember.”_

_“Which means you want to know how much you can safely keep hiding from me,”_ I snapped. _”Fuck this. Fuck **you.** All these games. . . . I have had it.”_

As I turned, a bloom of orange shot from Varric and into me. It really was a simple spell after all, as it turned out. He looked understandably alarmed.

It took me only a moment to adjust to the new information in my brain, and a moment longer for the muscles of my mouth and throat to adapt. “That was a language spell, Varric. Completely harmless, I promise.”

“. . . Well that’s reassuring,” he said at length. He did not sound reassured.

Cassandra’s eyes were wide. Elden looked wary. I was only vaguely aware of Solas getting up behind me. His ara’lin was held in like a dog tucking its tail between its legs. I liked to think that, anyway. The reality probably wasn’t so simple.

“I’m sure you need a bit of that after my flawless impression of a psychopath,” I answered. “I’m sorry I scared you. Before, too, with the whole cliff-jumping and wandering through the forest thing. I’m fine, though. Whatever was in the statue was calling to me. It didn’t hurt me, it just showed me a piece of my past. More or less. That’s how I knew the language spell when I woke up.”

“So you’re done with the whole eye-glowing, terrifying possessed mage thing?” Varric asked. “I had a bad experience with that a few years ago.”

“Eye-glowing?”

“Yes,” Cassandra said, voice distant and wary. “When you were attacking Solas.” Her eyes darted to him behind me, and her question was plain.

I blinked. I wanted to point out in a darkly reassuring manner that I had not been _attacking_ Solas, but that took a back seat. To the back of bus. “. . . What color?”

“What?”

“My eyes. What color were they when they glowed?”

“Yeah, because that’s the important question here,” Varric said.

It might be. “Humor me.”

“A few,” Elden offered. “It was like they couldn’t decide what to be. Gold and white and purple and green, I think some orange, maybe blue.” I looked at her, and she still had that same wary mask on.

“What color blue?” I asked, dread washing through me. “Light?””

“Uh. . . more like middle, or deep.” Elden said.

I closed my eyes, relieved. Not red and Mythal-blue. Those were the only colors I knew to be afraid of, and it had been a long shot that it would have been either, but I felt better all the same.

“Right. Ok. So then next would be ‘why did you fly into a fit of rage and try to kill our resident apostate, Nua,’ right?”

“That would be a good place to start,” Cassandra said.

“Well. . . . There isn’t a simple answer to that,” I said. And it was _all_ I intended to say.

“More importantly, your spirit was pulled from your body,” Solas supplied quietly, ‘helping me out’ while he moved around me at a respectful distance. He was a little hoarse. “You appeared to have died the instant you touched the statue.” There were so many questions in his eyes, and something new, something that reminded me of that expectant look he had worn around me for so long.

My jaw twitched.

“He’s telling the truth. You dropped like a boulder the second you touched the thing.” Varric nodded to the statue. “What _is_ it with cursed magical shit?”

“I found a trace of you and called it back. It is anchored firmly within you now, and should prevent any such thing from happening again.” Solas said, almost sounding shaky. Almost.

I carefully, carefully reigned in my emotions. The fact that I needed to keep him close hadn’t changed. My level of disgust had just intensified. And now I had _more_ questions, because if he felt like this might happen again, enough to go through the trouble of ‘anchoring my spirit,’. . . well, then for him, it probably had. I remembered the interest he had taken in me in the past and had to clamp down on a shudder. Best not to walk that mental road.

“Well,” I said. “Now that everyone is back and not actively murderous, how about we get to camp? If someone can get me a map of the Hinterlands, I’ll chart out everything that needs to be done while you all discuss whether or not to start dragging me around in full-body chains. Then we can figure out what comes first and what we can delegate.”

“Chains sound like a lot of work to me. And that’s on top of the fact that I’m getting the impression you could bend metal like it was cheese, Trouble.”

Cassandra started to say something at the same time I asked, brow scrunching, “What did you call me?”

“You said that’s what your name means, right? Seemed pretty fitting,” he said wryly. That he felt he could joke around me was a good sign; he, at least, wasn’t _completely_ put off.

“You called her that _before_ she told us her name, Tethras,” Elden said. “The mage had such a coughing fit that you thought he'd swallowed a beetle.”

“. . . Yeah. Thanks for pointing that out, newbie.” He gave me a covert glance.

I smiled at him. The man had a knack for cutting through tension like butter, and for limiting his idea of importance to things that actually _were_ important. “You’re a talented man, Varric, you know that? What am I saying, of course you do.

“Which reminds me,” I went on, walking past him. The moment Cassandra’s face was out of view of everyone, including me, I said, “I’m a big fan of Swords and Shields. You think you could start writing those again in your off time? I have a lucrative tip in trade.”

He gave me a look. “You’re from another world and until about two minutes ago you didn’t understand a word of our language. How exactly are you a fan of my least popular serial? I mean,” he chuckled, “who am I to say no to a fan? By which of course I mean a lucrative tip from the Prophet of the Maker herself. But. . . you know I write much better stuff than Swords and Shields, right? Even I thought it was garbage, and I wrote it,” He said in an undertone. “It’s not exactly some of my best work.”

I blinked at the “Prophet” comment, but didn’t have the presence of mind to go anywhere near it. “What can I say, Varric, the heart wants what it wants. Now in payment, you should contact your publisher.”

“Not exactly my favorite past time. The man’s a crook.”

The sound of cracking stone reverberated from behind us, and only then did I realize Solas had fallen behind. I imagined there wouldn’t be much left of the fox statue now, should I care to go back and look. I thought it was sloppy; if I hadn’t thought he had something to hide before, I sure would now.

“Literally,” I said without missing a beat. See, your books are _wildly_ popular among the Orlesian nobility. You’re a celebrity over there, and I’m guessing the several fat royalty checks you’re due have all mysteriously been lost in the mail. You’ll be coming with me to a ball in Val Royeaux, by the way, to charm those very same nobles in the name of the Inquisition.”

“A ball?”

I hummed agreement. “Not for months though, no need to worry. You may also be interested to know that since 9:36, _Hard in Hightown_ is the the most widely read book in Thedas, outside of Tevinter,” I said lightly. “Well, and Seheron, I assume. It even passed Genetivi’s _Travels of a Chantry Scholar._ So if you haven't been paid for that either, there you go Oh, and has _The Re-Punchening_ already surfaced?”

“How the shit. . . No offense, your Holiness, but that is seriously creepy.”

I laughed nervously to cover the fact that, for some reason, that actually hurt. “Right. Yes, well, sorry. I’ll just keep the name of the person who’s behind it to myself so as not to freak you out. Team dynamics are important, after all.”

“Now don't be so hasty! Some of my closest friends are creepy. You know Broody, right? Sticks his hands right through people’s chests! The shit I saw him do. . . .”

“What is ‘The Re-Punchening?’” Cassandra asked like we were talking about manure.

“A fake sequel to Master Tethras’ best-selling series,” I replied formally. “And Varric you’re so sweet, trying to make me feel better. But it’s ok, really, I don’t mind. Your opinion is important to me, and I’ll make every effort not to disturb you in such a way again. Consider all my insider information about you lidded. Finding him or her the old fashioned way won’t cost _too_ big a fortune, and with Leliana’s help? It should only take. . . I don’t know, six to eight months to track them down. Cake!”

“. . . What if I promise to have the next installment of _Swords and Shields_ finished by the end of the month?”

“Worthy,” I surrendered immediately.

“Perfect. Now who is it?”

“No, that’s who it is. Worthy. From Kirkwall. He blames you for the fact that he lost all of Hawke’s business to Sandal. And I’d take care of it soon, because he’s about to kill a magistrate and frame you for it. Then a comte. Then it just gets weirder from there.”

“. . . Have you ever thought about betting on nug racing? You could really clean up.”

 _”Varric,”_ Cassandra warned.

“Whaaat, I’m only thinking of the Inquisition, Seeker! Think of all the poor, starving refugees we could help if we had information like that! Ooo, or I have contacts in Orzammar who could get us some bets in on the Provings. There’s big money there.”

I expected some sort of reaction from Solas, but he was so distracted by his own thoughts that we could have all turned into dragons and he probably wouldn’t have noticed.

My attempt to suppress a laugh at Varric came out as a loud, spewed snigger, but before I could say anything, Cassandra was speaking again. “Prophet,” she said.

There was that word again. My brows drew together. Where was ‘Herald?’ I stopped and turned to her. “How long have people been calling me that?”

“Since you woke after the Breach.”

“Wait. What? What about ‘Herald?’”

“What herald?” Varric asked.

“No, I mean. . . you’ve been calling me Prophet, not Herald? Not the Herald of Andraste?”

“Is that what you are?” Cassandra asked seriously.

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Then I just resumed walking with a shake of my head and a dumbfounded look on my face. Bizarrely, I suddenly felt alone. “What were you going to ask, Cassandra?” I prompted.

She, Elden, and Varric gave me looks, but I just waited.

“We do not wish to restrain you. But we would like to understand what happened. You acted like a woman possessed. You could not be reasoned with.” ‘Or restrained,’ she didn’t have to say.

I wondered what she thought of me staying in shackles that first day on the dungeon floor now. I didn’t feel like I’d had my strength back then, but she didn’t know that.

I sighed, and for a minute, the only sounds were of our feet crushing plantlife, and animals and bugs moving in the trees and through the undergrowth. I heard what I thought must be some sort of earthworm.

“You have to understand,” I began, “all of this is new to me. Being what I am. Being _who_ I am. Doing what I can do, knowing what I know. My _body_ knows what it’s doing, but my mind. . . . I have to take a lot of things on faith. Instinct, intuition, whatever you want to call it. All I knew was that something was calling to me and I _had_ to get to it. When I did, it was like someone had scooped a piece of me out and put it into that rock, and reaching for it,” I paused, looking for the right words. “It was like reaching for water when you’re literally dying of thirst. I knew what it looked like, I knew that I was scaring you, but I didn’t have time to stop and explain. I just had to get to it.”

“And it held a memory of your past?” Cassandra asked.

I hesitated. “Not exactly.”

Solas joined the conversation with a sharp, vicious jab of attention. I felt a warning from him, and returned a warning of my own.

“Then what was it?”

“Well,” I hedged, “. . . here’s the thing. I touched it, I got a memory. Are the mechanics really so important?”

Her look answered for her.

“Cass - sorry, Cassandra, you’re really not going to like it,” I cautioned.

“What happened to giving us all of the information?” She asked.

“You know, Seeker, when the Prophet seer of the Maker himself tells you you’re not going to like something,” Varric said, “you might want to just listen. Difficult as I know that would be for you.”

I looked at Cassandra; there was no give in her eyes. I sighed. “Okay. Well then, do we trust Elden with inner-circle information? Because I don’t know anything about her.” I leaned out to look around Cassandra. “Hi, by the way, Elden. Nice to meet you,” I said with a dry but honest smile. “Points for the brass balls, by the way. I sure as hell would have moved out of my way.”

“Cullen sent her specifically to protect you,” Cassandra said. “He would not have done so if she was not trustworthy.”

“Wait. I thought she was guarding Eddard.”

“The apprentice?” Elden scoffed.

“Well why do _I_ need a guard? You were all there at my assessment, I was a damn machine! I kicked everyone’s asses! Uh, no offense,” I added to Elden.

“None taken,” she said with a puckish shrug. “Most enjoyable ass-kicking _I’ve_ ever gotten.”

“You did not speak our language or know our customs, and you were in a foreign land. It was prudent,” Cassandra defended.

I looked at her, then let it go with half-disgruntled noise. It did make a certain amount of sense. “If Cullen thought it was a smart play, I won't argue. He’s not stupid; I trust him.”

Annoyance stabbed through Solas.

“Will you _stop_ it,” I snapped, turning my head over my shoulder at him. ”Jesus Christ.”

“What was that?” Varric asked.

“What?”

“What you just said.”

“Oh. A blaspheming curse of the highest order where I come from.”

“Say it again?”

I chuffed a laugh and repeated it slowly. “You know,” I said, “between the lot of us, we can have you cursing in no less than five languages by the time this is over.”

“Much as I would appreciate that, it might be a little lost on me. Now if Isabella was here. . . .” He looked up at me, and I thought maybe it was a little sort of test, which seemed silly at this point, but I was already grinning appreciatively anyway.

“Or Hawke," I added. "Don’t pretend she wouldn’t enjoy it.”

“Maker’s ass,” he breathed.

Cassandra sent him a world-class scowl.

“So, the statue." I braced myself. "I seem to have gone back in time. Rather a long way, actually.”

Cassandra stopped, and I was the only one with reflexes fast enough not to pass her.

“But. . . how. . . .” She tried.

“. . . I think what you means is ‘holy fucking shit,’” Varric said.

I shrugged, inclined to counter their tension. “Time magic isn’t unheard of. It’s just rare and the highest order of stupid idiot lunacy. This, though. . . this wasn’t time magic. At least not like the kind I know of. In either case,” I said, and Solas would hear the buried ire enter my tone, “Solas said he anchored my spirit, so it shouldn’t happen again. No more memories for me! Because god knows how unhelpful _those_ would be. I saved us at least three weeks of me bumbling around not understanding what anyone is saying, at least."

They gawped, some in a much more dignified way than others.

“. . . Take the victory where you can get it, people,” I muttered and resumed walking without waiting for a reply. My tone belied how vulnerable I felt at the reaction. Peoples' faces were going to get stuck that way if any of them spent too much time around me. Being looked at like an alien on a regular basis was a fabulous life experience.

I knew this must be jarring for them. I knew every time they turned around, I shoved a new unsettling thing right into their faces. I knew I had a broader perspective of all of this. But it wasn't like this wasn't weird for me, too. And unlike them, I was going through it alone.

A mute person has a personality, but give that person the ability to speak fluently, and it becomes a _specific_ personality, fleshed out, less open to interpretation. The only difference for me now was that everything had just gotten much easier. For them, they were basically meeting a new person. Or rather, a collection of world-altering impossibilities in the form of a person who was probably much too insensitive most of the time.

“I guess time-travel is a good way to help you get over your first kill,” Elden said with false lightness. Cassandra and Varric tensed.

It was a moment before I answered. “Elden, you’ve seen me fight. That wasn’t my first kill. It was just the first one I remember. Brass balls again, though.”

I pressed on ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations in the comments.
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> 8/25/17: Future Solas is bald now. There's a reason - I would never arbitrarily take away Fen'harel's glorious hair. And it will be back later. Also a bunch of formatting corrections and some dialogue tweaks.  
> 4/25/18: We have reached a hair compromise. Other tweaks to future scene.  
> 10/4/18: Rather than saying "My home," in reply to "Where are we?," Solas now answers, "My temple." Didn't strike me as the type to take petitioners at home.


	14. Wolves, All Kinds

We sent two of the watchtower teams out with extra soldiers and warnings about what they might face. The third had to wait until we’d closed a Rift near their goal. Two soldiers accompanied our party so we could let the last watchtower team know when it was safe.

I sat making a map of everything we needed to cover while everyone else had lunch.  Until Varric "suggested" he let me work, Eddard kept trying to get me to eat a single piece of dried meat, babbling the whole time about apparently every thought that entered his mind, _after_ he had finished asking me every conceivable question about the language spell I'd used.

”Do we have a lot of soldiers equipped to fight demons?” I asked at one point. “I mean, the average one isn’t, right?”

“How do you have near omniscience and not know that?” Varric asked.

“I don’t have near omniscience, I told you-- Or, oh I guess I didn’t tell _you._   I’m not omniscient.  I just. . . remember things.  Some of them are happening right now, some of them haven’t happened yet.  But I _did_ tell you I’m not from here.  If not for magic, I wouldn’t even be capable of basic hygiene or skincare without detailed instruction.”

“Maker forbid your skin not be luminous, Prophet.”

I shot a glare at him for the name.  “Ok look. If you like to look at pretty women, don’t complain about the methods.  Pretty takes work.  I don't complain about you singing your chest hair to sleep or brushing it one hundred times every day or whatever.”

Elden cut in before he could shoot back.  “So you’re not new to time travel, then,” she said around a small mouthful of some kind of berry she’d found on our way back to camp. I tried one; they were bright orange, tart and crisp and filled with wetness. She said they were good for headaches.

“No.  I mean yes. That was my first time as far as I know.  I have no explanation for how I ‘remember’ things that haven’t happened, but that’s hardly the strangest thing that’s happened in the last two weeks.

“Anyway I ask because there are. . .four? Yyyyes. Four. Four demons that aren’t Rift-related in the area, and I wanted to know if we need to take care of them personally so people don’t, you know, die.  Well, four that I know of.  Everything in Thedas so far is what I expect, just bigger and more intricate.  Plus I'm not omniscient so. . . you know.  Safety disclaimer.”

“What sort of demons?” Cassandra asked.  She was getting used to weird and impossible shit coming from my mouth faster than. . . well, just Varric.  It was nice.  They had all adjusted to the way I could tend to ramble, too.  Also nice.

“Uh, there’s a greater terror, we should take care of that one.” My eyes swept over the map as I tried to remember all the details of this place. “There’s a rage demon, a shade, and then a lesser terror that we’ll be getting for Dennet’s wife.  Its taken control of a pack of wolves near the farms.”

“A prepared unit should be able to handle the rage demon and the shade,” Cassandra said.

I nodded and returned to my work, making a note on a second map.

 

* * * * *

 

I left the map I'd filled in with Harding. I’d circled things we’d be taking care of personally: Rifts, enchanted Tranquil skulls (which I insisted on dismantling and bringing with us for proper burial - Varric was delighted), future camp areas that needed to be cleared of danger, bases for the more aggressive templar and apostate groups, agents to be acquired (which I wanted to do personally), and the other urgent points. We picked the most efficient route through everything, given mission priorities. The rest I left to her to hand out to soldiers and scouts in safe areas following our progress.

We took care of the crossroads first - Cole reappeared as we were getting into position to go in.

I insisted that any mercenaries in enemy parties be left until last if safe to do so and given a chance to surrender and leave, and Cole told us of anyone he could hear who might want to join us, or of decent people who just wanted to be done with the fighting. There were very few.

My barriers were stronger than Solas’, and magical multitasking at this level was effortless, so I kept up party defense, but I no longer shied away from killing like I had.  It hurt; something in me, some tiny shard, died with every heart stopped or head rent.  This would be my life now; there was no point in putting it off, and the sooner it hurt, the sooner it could stop hurting.

I could mourn them when I had time to myself; I was not stupid enough to pretend I could kill without emotional consequences, and I wasn’t the type to give such a thing opportunity to fester.

We skirted mother Giselle against Cassandra’s protest, and the refugees against everyone else’s, and went straight for a large Doomsday Cult in the ruins of an old fort, Winterwatch Tower.  Once I had proven myself to them, I took care of all the mission points there and told their leader to take blankets, medicine, clothing, and food to the appropriate parties at the Crossroads.  They were to tell people that the supplies were compliments of the Inquisition.  I would have said “the Inquisition and the Prophet,” but where I had been resigned to the title of ‘Herald,’ ‘Prophet’ wasn’t yet an idea I could sit with.

The cultists would keep up a steady supply for the refugees, foraging where safe, and using the aid as an excuse to spread word of the Inquisition and gather any useful information.  I loathed to my very core telling them to make sure to give the Inquisition credit for the aid - it was the antithesis of a good deed - but this had to be about building our organization’s reputation as much as it was helping starving, deposed people.  It was the laughable least of the evils I would have to order before all of this was over.

I’d brought the blank map I'd made notes on with us.  I would fill it in when we stopped for the day - I hadn’t wanted to waste the sunlight on a second one at camp.  It led us to the den of controlled wolves.  Much to everyone’s displeasure, I insisted that I was going in alone.  A ‘discussion’ ensued.

When Cassandra and Elden were in round three of tripping over each other to tell me what a stupid idea it was, I lost my patience and shouted, “I don’t want to kill all of them!  We don’t need to, not if we just take care of the demon that’s controlling them, but if all of you go tromping in there, we won’t be able to avoid it.  I can get in without being seen.

“In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m not a fan of killing as a first resort.  They did nothing wrong, they don’t deserve to be murdered just because the world is screwed up and some stupid demon got spat out by a Rift and did what demons do.  Plus, ecosystemic integrity is a lot more important than you might guess."

I figured I knew how Solas would feel about my insistence, but fortunately, I didn’t have to _know._   As if a polite gesture, he seemed to be keeping his ara’lin to himself.  I got the feeling it was costing him, and for some reason which only made me _more_ angry, I felt guilty for being the cause.  I was furious with him, but the more angry I got and the longer I held on to it, the more it felt like I was kicking a puppy.  Which then just made me angry and confused, and so angrier still all over again, and I was getting more and more tightly wound.

“They’re just wolves,” Elden argued, confused.

“And you’re just a knife-ear!” I barked back.

One of Elden’s hands twitched reflexively in the direction of her dagger. Everyone else had gone rigid.

“Hey, now, Trou--” Varric began, but I cut overtop of him, staring at Elden.

“Do you get my point?” I asked, exasperated.  She didn’t answer, so I went on.  “It’s perspective, Elden.  I like you.  You’re smart and sharp and badass and you get up every time you’re knocked down.  Some idiot human would look at you or me without knowing a thing about us and see a worthless piece of gutter trash.  I’m convinced I’m right.  So is the human.  So who actually is?  Who _decides_ who is?

“That bandit with the beard and red hair in the last party we killed? He was a stranger, right? A nameless, random person who wanted to rob or kill us, who would keep hurting people if we didn’t stop him."

"Yes," Cole said.  "They all would have."

"Yes, thank you, Cole.  But that guy?  He had a three year-old son, Elden, and another who was seven."

"No h--" I slapped a hand over Cole's mouth and said over his muffled words,  _"Thank you, sweet spirit, please leave this one to me."_

"Spirit?"  Cassandra asked, taken aback.

"A term of endearment," I said dismissively.   _"Anyway,_ the boy was the bandit's nephew, who was staying with him while his parents left on their own, trusting their boy was safe, to salvage what they could from their old home. They were killed trying to flee, caught in the crossfire of a battle between two groups of mages.  He was raising his younger sister for a similar reason.

“He owed four crowns to one of the guys he left back at camp, cooked a mean nug stew, prayed every night before he went to bed, and was the only person an infirmed aunt had to take care of her. That was what drove him to start attacking travelers, in fact.  Want to guess how many of those people are going to have a smooth life now that he’s dead?  Want to guess how many are going to _survive?”_

". . . Andraste's Ass, kid, that's worse than most of the shit I write," Varric said.

I almost laughed at being called 'kid.'  ". . . I can't think of a good quote about reality and fiction right now, but thank you for ruining the moment, Tethras.

I looked at everyone in turn.   _”Perspective,”_ I repeated emphatically. “Everything in this world is _alive._ That doesn’t change just because it doesn’t talk how you do or live by the same rules you do or care about the same things you do. Those wolves have as much value to me as any person we’ve met so far. The animals we’ve been killing for fur and meat do, too. The plants we harvest for potions and tea. The things we trample to put down tents, the wood we take for fires, that biting insect I swatted earlier. I can _feel_ the life in things, and a rock, even the dirt in the treads of your boots, Varric, has just as much as any one of us.  We're not better just because we move and talk and cook food, and build houses, and are smart enough to enslave and murder each other for ideological differences.”

I looked at them. Elden’s ears were still a little red, but she was trying to listen. Cassandra _was_ listening, Varric looked like he thought I was several pages short of a book, and I ignored Solas’ attention as completely as I had been since the statue.

“I don’t expect anyone to believe the way I do. I don’t expect you to make any drastic changes. But at least while _I’m_ here, while _I’m_ de facto in charge,” it was to my surprise that no one went tense with objection, “understand that killing will be our _last_ choice, regardless of whether or not it’s more convenient,” I said scathingly, “than others.  Sometimes killing is the right thing to do.  I get that. But those times are rare.”

I looked at each of them in turn, again omitting Solas. “So.  Can I please go so we can get shit done before it gets too dark for you half-blind idiots to put up your tents?”

Cassandra pursed her lips, but only said, “At least take Varric or Elden with you.  How do you intend to keep yourself out of sight?”

I gave her a flat ‘really?’ look.

She made a near-inaudible growling, exasperated noise. “Right. Fine. But take someone to help you should you need it. Wandering off alone is asking for trouble.”

"So many jokes in that name," Varric said.

"Shut it, dwarf," Cassandra bit back with a glower.  He held his hands up in surrender.

I gave Cassandra another look, this one unamused and decidedly more private. She knew damn well I didn’t need the help.

“Prophet-”

“Jesus H. would you not call me that?” I practically shouted, squirming inside. “Look--” I forced myself to stop, take a deep breath, and calm down. My voice was a much more reasonable volume when I went on. “I get it if that’s what the rest of the world has to call me or whatever. I get it if you have to call me that in front of other people, but when it’s just us. . . Nua. Please, _please_ just call me Nua. I can’t. . . the ‘Prophet’ thing, Cassandra? I just can’t. I’m sorry. I’ll try, ok, I really will, but I’m just not there yet. It was less than two weeks ago for me that I fell out of a hole into a new world and everything, _everything_ has changed and I’ve gone from being absolutely no one to someone who’s supposed to save the goddamned world. Please, give me some time, ok?” I finished, strained but gentle.

“Now,” I went on, “if it’s that important to you, Varric or Elden can come with me, but whoever it is had better stealth like they have never stealthed before, because if either of you,” I looked at the rogues, “gives us up and we end up having to kill one of those demon-’possessed’ furballs after all of this, I am going to be seriously pissed off.”

“. . . I think that means you get to take this one, newbie,” Varric said to Elden.

“I’m no more ‘new’ than you are, Tethras.” She scoffed and muttered “sissy” under her breath. She gave me a crisp nod, and we were off.  Elden stealthed herself, and I vanished on my own. She nearly keeled over.

“How the fuck--”

I shrugged, then remembered she wouldn’t see it. “Weird, impossible shit is my purview, apparently. Weren’t you briefed before we left?”

“No, I was, just. . . hearing you can do the impossible and seeing it are two different things.  I've never heard of a spell like you just cast.”

"Maybe it's a first.  But I doubt it."

Once we were out of earshot of the others but not quite to the den entrance, Elden began in whisper, “Just curious, your worshi--”

I shot a death glare at her and let it ripple outside of me.

“Nua,” she corrected hastily. “Right. Maker, how you do that. . . .” She huffed a laugh too quiet for most to hear. “That tale you told about the bandit. If both the parents of that kid were killed, how did he find out how they’d died?”

I suppressed a smile. “Who’s to say no one was with them?”

“You. You said they went on their own.”

It was getting considerably easier to like this woman as the days went on.

“People meet people on the road, Elden. Or maybe someone found their bodies."

"Yes, but your boy--"

"Cole?"

"Yes. Sounded like he might want to argue with your story."

"Cole is known to be seemingly random. And maybe I just divined it, Elden. I hear that’s my thing.” I said, mockingly arch. “Don’t I know everything?”

“Not according to what you said this afternoon when Varric accused you of it.”

I snorted a quiet laugh. “Ok, ok, the story was complete bullshit. I guess that was obvious, but still. Points for having the balls to ask.

“The man smelled of piss and rage and an ocean of hard alcohol,” I went on. “Now, he may still have been important to someone, or a good enough person. Odds are that he wasn’t, but who’s to say? The story just helped me make my point. Now shut up and don’t argue with your demi-god.”

“Aye, Messere,” she said, and I could hear the laugh she was burying in her voice.

“Are you a ‘Marcher?” I asked, curious about her use of the honorific.

She didn’t answer for a moment. “Can’t you divine it?” She asked, tongue-in-cheek.

I snorted. “I knew I liked you.” I’d like her more if her eyes weren’t always on me like. . . like she was waiting for something to _learn._

 

* * * * *

 

It was simple enough to sneak into the den, though it took some time to make sure we gave every wolf a wide berth. Fortunately, most of them we sleeping through the evening hours, but it was a large pack, twenty-five at least, and they were on the ground and above us on the natural stone platforms and walkways.

Killing the demon was easier than blowing out a candle flame.  Its death agitated the wolves at first, but we watched from a corner as they started coming back to themselves. I insisted on waiting until we could be sure they were back to normal, then I stepped out and came into sight with a loud yell, waving my arms above my head. Each of the wolves near us jumped in surprise and ran several feet away, wary and cautious. I took that as a good enough indication, and we were back out within minutes.

“Maker, woman, you are out of your mind,” Elden proclaimed as we were nearing the others. 

Cassandra looked from her to me and back again. “I don’t want to know, do I,” she asked flatly.

“Sure you do!” I gushed. “We won. It’s a happy day! Another demon dead, puppies are back to normal - there were, by the way. Four of them. Cutest damn things. And now. . . _now_ we get _horses,”_ I said with an excited gleam in my eye.

“You really have a thing for animals, don’t you?” Varric asked.

I shrugged. “I guess so. . . .No, now that you mention it, I think you’re right.”

I smelled something from him that I short-handed as an emotional eye-roll.

“My condolences,” Cassandra said drily.

“Hey now, Seeker, I should think you’d be used to me being right. Any good author has to have an eye for characters. Princess Perfect here is your typical goody-two-shoes hero of legend and - no offense, Trouble - probably tragedy.” He looked at me. “I’m still surprised that raven back at camp didn’t jump on your shoulder and ask to travel with you. A few more seconds and it might have.”

“Is it also a writer’s talent to make something awesome sound like it’s supposed to be a bad thing? Who couldn’t use an army of birds swooping down and clawing people’s eyes out when you need a good distraction?”

“You know it’s disturbing how fast you came up with that.”

I shrugged. “Maybe _I_ was an author. And also your face is disturbing.” More than one person groaned. “Which is what I’d like to say, but you’re ruggedly handsome and we both know it.” Cassandra made an utterly appalled sound.

“Pay no attention to her,” Varric said of Cassandra. “The Seeker just has a thing against obvious truths. Kind of ironic if you think about it.”

“Your horses are cool,” I rushed to say before Cassandra could reply. “The ones where I’m from don’t look exactly like yours, and they’re not quite as smart, either. All they eat is plants. I saw yours kill some kind of rodent and eat it this morning, Varric. _Eat_ it. It was. . . surreal,” I said, a little dazed even at the memory. “Honestly, almost everything is different here. The birds have gotten better though, since we came out of the mountains. More bird-like.”

“That sounds very lonely,” Solas said quietly.

A muscle in my jaw twitched. _“You are still on probation, you gaping asshole. Mope vicariously on your own time.”_

And god damnit, but it almost felt cruel.

It did feel a little lonely. But I wasn’t about to admit that in front of him, and I wasn’t one to wallow, anyway.

“Must mind the fine line,” Cole said.  “Dangerous if you tip, topple, lean too far. Balance, always balance or you fall." It made something in my stomach twist with nervous discomfort.  "He misses you so much, but. . . this you, not the one you were before.”  The twist that time was almost nausea.  Which 'him' was Cole talking about?

We closed one last Rift as the sky grew livid with color, just off of the ruins of a tower where I wanted us to spend the night.  I knew Solas would love to sleep in them, and had the gratification of him saying as much while we were setting up camp and the others were speculating on the first ocularum shard we’d just found.  I let them without butting in.

“Goody for you,” I said coldly to Solas, “because we’re sleeping here.  Tell all the ghosts I said ‘hi.’”

His ara’lin uncurled experimentally, just the tiniest bit, but mine fairly snarled itself frothy in reaction, so it curled right back up. Even after so short a time, I was getting used to not having the feel of him around. In a way, without the extra presence of him or Fen'harel, I felt more like myself. Either Solas was doing something sketchy, or contact between ara’lins was like a drug. I favored the latter idea - it would explain a lot I had noticed about him, myself, and Fen’harel, and matched my ‘ara’lins made the elvhen even bigger assholes to one another’ theory.

 

* * * * *

 

The others were eating and I was gathering obscene amounts of elfroot - the tower was practically overgrown with them, and Solas could make them into potions, it turned out - when two guards rode up on horseback under the light of torches. One dismounted, sketched a quick salute, and held out a tiny slip of paper to Cassandra.  She took it with thanks, he saluted again, and they were off.

I looked at her curiously as she unfolded the paper, glanced at it, then held it out to me. On it was scratched two runes. I looked at her in question.

“Can you not read it?” She asked in surprise.

I shook my head. “Oral language only, I guess.  I'll still have to learn to read and write the old-fashioned way.”

“It is from Leliana, an answer to your request,” she said, and my eyebrows shot up.  With travel time from the nearest camp for the soldiers, it couldn’t have been a six-hour turnaround for Leliana’s birds to get to Haven, deliver the message, and carry a reply back.

“It says ‘yes.’”

I nodded and muttered an absent “Thanks,” looking back down at the paper, tracing the runes with my eyes, seeing the miniscule spiderlegs of ink, the tiny catches of the pen or quill over the texture of the paper, the rough edges, the small fibers standing up. I carefully folded it and tucked it into one of my more secure pockets. It was the first word I could read.

 

* * * * *

 

It was well into third watch when I heard the soft rustle of a body getting up, pushing away the top of a bed roll - a primitive sleeping bag, basically - then a tent flap being opened. It was Solas. My eyes slid closed and I turned away from him subtly. There was no moon and the night was clouded, but he found his way with as little trouble as I would.

“May I?” He asked quietly when he stood next to me.  From the corners of my eyes, I saw him gesture to the squat remains of a stone wall I was leaning against.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on your date with spirits of the past?”

“Date?"

"It's. . . ugh, nevermind."

"Hm.  Spirits of the Fade only reflect the past," he said, happy as ever to bring out his inner professor, "they are not--”

“I know,” I interrupted peevishly. “I was being blithe.  Jocular.”

“Ah, my mistake," he said with small mirth in his voice.  "I found I could not sleep.”

I nearly snorted. ‘Couldn’t sleep,’ my ass.

I waited so long it was just to the right side of polite, then looked in his direction without moving my head and dipped my chin, a shallow, mostly token gesture.  As he sat, I sighed quietly and looked up at the stars where they peeked between the clouds, and at the way their light shone through behind them in gentle yellows, oranges, reds, pinks, greens. . . any color I could name, and some I still couldn’t.  I supposed I could always ask Fen'harel what they were called, but there was something nice about not knowing.  It wasn't like I'd need to refer to them in conversation.

“If I am not mistaken, Elden should be on watch, should she not? You have not been sleeping.”

“Knew you were sharp.  What are you, my mother?” I felt a stab of alienness. I hadn’t actually had a mother, had I.

“. . .If I told you I was sorry for keeping the truth from you, would you believe me?” He asked quietly.

I considered my answer, because it wasn’t a simple one. I knew he regretted it, just like Fen’harel regretted all the shitty things he had done. But he still did them. And he would do them again. I just said, “Ask me that again when you’re not still lying.  It's wasted lip service otherwise.”

He turned to look at me, and though his face was a mask of neutrality, I could feel his eyes burning through me.

“Don't do that,” I said.

“What?”

I rolled my eyes. “That Game bullshit. If you want to know something, just ask. That way I can say no like a normal person and save myself the extra headache and annoyance.”

“Such subtlety is a skill you are likely to need before this is over,” he said, quiet and instructive, ever the teacher, the coach, the "guide." Ever the man at the wheel.

“Ok first of all, I didn’t ask jack shit for your advice, and second. . . you don't fucking say,” I finished, scathing.

If he was affected by my profanity, he masked it flawlessly. “The Inquisition is a fledgeling organization, as you know. It has a great many people yet to convince, and will need every ally it can get before this is over. Before it can end.”

“He says to the woman who literally knows the future. Solas, you can pretend to fear spirits and hate the Fade and believe the bullcrap the Dalish spout, right?”

His brows came together delicately.

I looked at him for the first time, pushing for him to answer.

“I suppose I could, yes. If I had to.”

I almost snorted. He ‘supposed’ he could.

“Right,” I said. “But you don't, because why the fuck would you? But you _could._ That doesn't mean you want to spend any more time doing it than necessary. I'll play the Game when it's time, when I have to, and not a single moment more. I _loathe_ things like that.”

His ara’lin didn’t need to be out for me to feel the shock and disquiet pass through him. It reminded me of Fen’harel saying I had really changed; I supposed the woman I had been in Solas’ time would not have said what I had.

I looked away with a slight curl of my lip. I wanted to ask him questions about the past. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

He let me sit in the quiet for only a few moments. “You do not care for me.”

It was a casual observation, simple, obvious, and he spoke with no malice. Still, I gritted my teeth.

“Why? What have I done?” He asked, polite and gentle. More polite than I deserved. But there was something about his tone that was incredibly personal.

I closed my eyes and leaned back into the wall, letting my head fall back to rest on it.

“Let me ask you something, Solas,” I said, and suddenly I was so tired. “Do we fight well together?”

It was a moment before he answered. “Yes, we do. Your style is fluid and adaptable; few would be able to say otherwise.”

Kissass.

. . . It was true so far, but still. “And are we able to work together smoothly, short of garbage like this afternoon? Do we communicate well enough?”

He caught on to where I was going. “I am not speaking of our professional relationship. You dislike me personally.”

And there it was. I gave a tight exhale and turned to look up at him. “Why does it matter? If we can work together without any problems, why does my personal opinion matter?”

It was a moment, a long moment of him looking at me before he answered. “You remind me of the past. You know that now. You are a piece of a home and a people I may never see again.”

That sobered me. “Such as the village in the north?” I asked, bitterness leaking into my voice.

“Among others, yes,” he answered seriously.

I growled at his thrice-damned evasiveness, audible only because of what he was. “I can’t be the only one you have something in common with, Solas. You're not the last elvhen in the world, and I must hardly qualify as one. There are others, and I know you must believe that, even if you haven't sought any out yet.

"Cullen has been to war as a soldier and a commander. Josephine understands diplomacy and politics and the Game. She knows polished refinement. Cole is literally from the Fade. Someone is coming who will be a book hound and open-minded and magically experimental. Or are you the cat, trying to pick at the person who least wants your attention? Why are you stirring the pot?”

“. . . You know why, Nuaelan,” he said quietly, and he actually sounded sincere. But there was something else underneath. I almost exploded - he went on before I could. “If you prefer I not make this personal, I could point out that animosity will affect our working relationship sooner or later. Do you want to take the chance that it will come to a head at the worst possible moment? Such things cause carelessness, and I do not truly believe you foolish enough to think otherwise.

"Perhaps I simply wish to know what it is I have done that so offends you, what it is about me, particularly when you know nothing of your past. Without your memories, I should have been a stranger to you the first time you saw me, but you behaved as if you could not stand the sight of me. If you would allow yourself the chance to get to know me, you may find-”

I cut him off with a growl loud enough for anyone to hear and whirled on him. He was so _calm._ It was infuriating. “I _do_ know you!” I shout-whispered. “I just don’t like you! Are you the fucking prom queen or something? Does everyone have to like you?” I felt a little jab of guilt for that. The reality was that deep, deep down, he wanted _anyone_ to like him. The real him. But he wouldn’t allow it, even if they wanted to, even if he was capable of showing who he really was, and so he twisted tighter into a cocoon of his own making with every move.

“Do I have to remember not liking you thousands of years ago to not like you now? Because from what I saw today, you were just as much of an asshole then as you are now, but at least back then you didn’t _pretend_ you weren’t!"

He looked down, brows twitching together.

“I know you. You’re curious and artistic and creative and passionate. You value knowledge, you love to learn, and you cherish _any_ chance to teach. Seeing anyone else who genuinely wants to learn makes you look like a kid at Christmas, even if you don't let that cool mask you wear slip. You’re sad and heartbroken and so lonely that it's practically a cloud of leaden pain that follows you around, and even _I_   hurt from it sometimes.

"You love to help when you think people deserve it, and you hate to see anyone suffer, except the few you choose to really, truly hate, but it takes a lot to get you there. You don’t complain about problems of your own making, and you’re solution-minded and forward-thinking, even though you love the past, _our_ past, more than just about anything. Except the Fade. The Fade will always be a home to you that this world can never be, and you stay well away from anything that will dampen your connection to it.” A warning bank of mental fog blew in, but I shook it off and forced myself on. An odd look shone behind his eyes as it came and went.

"What was that?" He asked.

I ignored his question. “You appreciate the underdog. The closest you come to a belief system is the value you put on the inherent freedom of the individual and the fact that nothing is as simple as it seems.  That so much of the world comes down to moral gray area. You hate yourself, but you don't want to.  You're 'a clever man who wonders what he could do if pushed,' right?"

His eyes widened.

"The problem is what you _would_ do."  I paused before going on.  "You can have a beautiful sense of humor and mischief when you want to. You’re patient and tempered. You’re ten, a hundred times more clever than you let on, about two tiers above genius, you’re a walking set of encyclopedias, more gifted and talented than anyone I think I’ve ever known, you can be unspeakably kind, and you would fight past the death for what you believe in. Honestly, aside from a few things that would make me want to hit you from time to time, I should _adore_ you."

Something was welling up in him that he was fighting hard to keep to himself.

“But you’re intractable," I went on. "You're arrogant, _god_ you're arrogant, and you're just as blind as anyone else, because you only really ask yourself questions that fit into the worldview you already have.  You are fatally subjective, which is frightening because of the potential you have to change everything.

"You’re quick to pass judgement, you’re opinionated, you can be a serious dick when you want to, and you have a buried superior streak a mile wide. You're defensive - although that one I can understand. You hide behind so many layers of masks that I’d be surprised if you even know who you are anymore, and you have so many secrets that I’m also surprised you don’t just blow away in the wind sometimes.

"But the worst thing, the _worst thing_ about you, Solas, is that you will make a horrible, closed-off decision with full knowledge that you're doing it. You're dangerous, because everything big you do is chosen consciously, meticulously, whether it's right or wrong, and you're so goddamned _smart_ that you circle any argument from outside yourself and put it to death before it can even fully form. You remind me of him, actually. Fen'har--" I had to squeeze my eyes and shake my head against a jab in my forehead. Whatever diminished pain response I had didn't seem to apply here. Either that or my brain was literally liquefying from the inside, and given that I was still cognizant. . . well.  It was going to get seriously old.

I went on with a deep breath before he could pretend to fuss. "You justify your actions with no room for argument. In that way, you have no business trying to live with other people, no business as part of any society, because you refuse to hear others.  I don't think you should be without the company of others, but you need to get your shit straight. You also make your own problems and do nothing about them even while they are _killing_ you."

I paused, breathing hard despite myself. I had turned to face him, and I wasn't sure when.

“I know why your bad qualities exist. I know some of them are personality traits, things you haven’t overcome or grown out of. Maybe you don't want to. I know most of them are reactions to past pains and hardships. Half the shit about you that annoys me boils down to a shell that’s even thicker than mine.” The muscles around my eyes twitched involuntarily - another realisation about myself. “And I’ll be honest, if you were anyone else, I don’t think I’d be judging you so harshly. I probably wouldn't be as impatient. I’ll admit that my reaction to you is. . . odd. Probably unfair. But just like something pulled me to that statue today, something _screams_ at me that you are not good news." His head tilted back slightly to look down at me.  "Which is weird because there's this part of me that I can't pretend to understand, that is at complete odds with everything else, that  _wants_ to like you.  It's tiny.  And rare.  And easy to shut up.

“I do know you. I know your tastes,” I said, again lowering my voice again so as not to wake anyone. Besides, the more flustered I got, the calmer he would get, and I refused to give him that high ground. “I know your personality and your character the same as I do with everyone else.” I paused, abruptly uncomfortable. “. . .But your past, your future. . . they don’t exist. _You_ don’t exist. And it’s unsettling.  You came from nowhere and that's where you disappear back to.  But I know you're a person. I know you're real, at least as real as I am which, to be fair, may not be saying much.

“That alone wouldn’t be enough, I’m not that small, but. . . .” I paused for a long moment, searching his face and finding only his attention and the fact that there was much more underneath that I couldn’t identify. “I don’t trust you.” I said it almost kindly, almost apologetically. Because though it was true, I didn’t know why. “I told you that I know you have secrets. I don't know what they are, but I know they’re the sort of secrets that could tear the world apart some day. I feel ill with it every time I look at you, I feel the sense of something coming, something that will shred me, and something in me screams not to trust you, not to let you near anyone or anything I care about. There’s something I _want_ to like about you, Solas. I see it, and it pisses me the hell off, because it makes it harder to hate you, and because I just. . . can’t,” I finished, honest and helpless. “And I don’t know why.”

 _’Now how the hell are we supposed to work together? If you don’t just pack up and leave tonight,’_ I thought.

Solas regarded me for a long time. Then, his manner unfairly calm and professional, simply offered, “What would you like to know?” He was the counterpoint to my agitation, and it crept under my skin like a delayed burn. Partly because I knew I did the exact same thing to other people. But there was an intense sort of longing in him, too.

For a moment, only a moment, I was nonplussed, but I didn’t let it show on my face.

I answered, smug at being able to call his bluff. “What you’re hiding. What your secrets are.”

“Would you like them alphabetically?” He asked, dry and just a bit arch. I was asking a lot. I didn’t care. If he wanted my trust, this was the price. If he didn’t want to pay, he could drop it and back the hell off.

My eyes narrowed, my voice stayed cool. This was a game now, a game of seeming unaffected. We both knew I was going to lose because he was already well under my skin, but damn if I wouldn’t play first. “How about you start with the biggest and work your way down?” I said in a condescending voice.

He looked at me for only a moment, utterly expressionless, before answering in an almost aggressively detached voice. “Very well. I am Fen’harel.”

I blinked dumbly at him until he just started talking again, but he had gone distant. A defense mechanism.

“I have been spending nights with you in the Fade, teaching you. I created the Veil, costing us our connection to the Fade, our immortality, our world, and made our eventual dismantling by ancient Tevinter not only possible, but unavoidable. I am the death of everything we were. Since I woke from Uthenera, I have sought to fix my mistake by taking down the Veil and restoring the world of our time, at the cost of the lives of everyone else in this world.”

There was no sound but crickets. I might have laughed under any other circumstance.

It was a long time before I found my voice.  “. . . You are a goddamned asshole, Solas.  I hope he sees this and bites your face off."

Surprise and consternation tinted his features.

With a tight, angry exhale I pushed to my feet and left without a backwards glance. “I’m going for a walk,” I said, disgusted. Let him take over the watch. I was an idiot for thinking his offer had been serious. I'd held a hand out - resentful and aggressive, sure, but it had been there - and he had bitten it. That was no one's fault but my own. Solas _had_ secrets, he didn’t _share_ them.

Of course he knew Fen’harel’s story.  Aside from being elvhen, he and Fen were probably still close.  But to claim that story as his own?  What could he possibly hope to-- I felt a jab in my forehead and put a hand to it, growling loudly in frustration. Arrogant, overconfident bastard.

I knew Fen’harel, and better than Solas did or could, in connection if not memory. I felt a stab of jealous possessiveness over it, in fact. I knew his pain and his past and his struggles. I was his friend. Solas made a good show of being the mysterious, wise apostate, and I knew he had secrets of his own, sure. But Solas was no Fen’harel, and he never would be.

Luckily, I knew how to blow off steam: by doing something incredibly, recklessly stupid.

 

* * * * *

 

“Boss. What are you doing?” Elden asked from behind me. Like she thought she’d snuck up on me. It was almost cute.

“How’d you get past Solas?” I asked, voice hushed.

She followed my gaze and lowered her own voice dramatically.  “I told him I had to piss. I drank a lot before bed so it’d be easier to wake up for my watch. Thanks for that, by the way.”

“Ah. That’ll do it.  And you’re welcome, she says with equal sarcasm.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Let me run something by you. How long were you with your clan?”

“Until about ten years ago.  Most of my life,” she said, taking a seat by me. I was laying on my belly and watching a Rift below us. Three demons were roaming near it, but I felt five strands coming from the tear.  I had my gloves on and my right hand buried between my stomach and the ground in case the anchor decided to act up and announce me.  Us.

“And dalish look at demons and spirits as sort of just. . . different kinds of people, right?  Instead of beings that are good and evil? Or, evil and more evil.”

“More or less, sure.”

“You get into Andrastianism at all?”

She shrugged. “Not really. Does this have to do with why you’re sightseeing in the middle of the night? And the fact that we didn’t close this thing when it was a hundred feet from where we were going to be sleeping?”

“Yes and yes. I’d like you to listen to something with an open mind. It might go against your beliefs, so I’m asking you to suspend them. Not change them or anything just sort of. . . set them aside for a minute to listen objectively.”

“. . .Yeah, sure. Sounds simple,” she said flatly.

“Shut up and listen," I quipped. "So, spirits are the manifestations of people’s emotions and qualities. Demons are those emotions and qualities gone wrong. For instance, pride can be a very healthy, necessary thing. But take too much of it, and you turn into a complete asshole, right? It’s about balance.  Everything in moderation.  With me so far?”

She nodded and hummed quiet agreement.

“Ok. So, since spirits and demons are reflections of people, it makes sense if their most basic operating system reflects ours, too: they’re driven by their natures. By things that move too fast for the brain to monitor or keep up with. By emotion.  Instinct, if you prefer.  The difference is that I guess you could say spirits are, compared to us, two-dimensional in a way.”

“Two dimensional?”

“Uh. . . less fleshed-out.  More simplistic.  Like. . . hunger is hunger.  It isn’t also kindness and impatience and urgency and so forth.”

“Ok.”

“If you could have a polite conversation with a spirit, a demon would be its own custom flavor of a frothing, uncontrollable warpath, right?  Have you ever seen a person get so mad that they sort of just. . . go away?  You literally watch them disappear from their own face, something behind their eyes vanish, and there’s nothing there but a mask of rage and fury?”

“Yes,” she said, and even if her tone hadn’t said it, it would have been obvious there was a story there.  Anyone who's seen something like that has a story.  Chalk another mark for the "I maybe shouldn't try to recover my past" argument.

“Right. Well say that’s a rage demon.  You would have as much chance of reasoning with it as you would that person who’s blackout angry, which is to say, none.  A rage demon is like a person forever trapped in that state, boiled down until there is nothing else to them but that fury. There’s no reasoning with it, no distracting it from its anger, and there’s was nothing else in it to try and call to the surface and break through that madness."

"Shouldn't you be talking to Solas about this?"

I curled my lip and gave her a dirty look.  “Right," I went on pointedly.  "So every demon is like a person in the grip of the most primal, uncontrollable parts of ourselves, but with no way out.

“Now here’s my problem.  Most of the demons around the Rifts?  They probably started out as spirits.  I don't know what the demon to spirit ratio in the Fade is, but it's sure as shit not overrun with as many demons as it would have to be to fuel the number that every single Rift spits out.  They - the Rifts - are screwing things up in the Fade just like they’re screwing things up here. Spirits get pulled through against their will, and it’s so jarring, so traumatizing, that they’re warped into something against their natures.  It would be like turning people to abominations against their will and in the most horrifying way possible.”

She went still as I spoke.

“You know my obsession with ‘death only when necessary.’ Well, I kind of hate the idea that spirits are getting hideously tortured, warped, and disfigured, and all we can do for them in the end is kill them.  I have this theory.

“If any spirit can get warped into a demon, if all of them, by their natures, carry that seed in them, if every good trait can be taken too far and turned ugly, why wouldn’t the opposite be true? Why wouldn’t a seed of their nature’s pure form be in every demon?”

“Nua, that’s. . . “ ‘a really horrible idea,’ her tone said.

“Yeah I know," I said dismissively. "Dangerous and stupid and all that. It’s not like I think they can be reasoned with or anything. I’m not an idiot. But that doesn’t mean helping them is completely outside the realm of possibility. And before you horned in, I was just going to sort of. . . feel it out.”

“Feel it out,” she replied, flat and dubious.

“Does repeating it like that help it make more sense?”

“Not really.”

“Yeah.  Now you know why I came out here alone.  If this goes horribly wrong which, let’s be honest, it totally might, I can protect myself.  Anyone else is a distraction, and frankly, you might get in the way.”

“. . . So. . . when something _does_ go horribly wrong, you’re planning on killing three demons by yourself?”

“Five.”

“What?”

“There are five. I don’t know where the other two are.  There are like. . . strings coming from the. . . you know what, never mind.  I’ll be fine.”

“You do see that we’re looking at a desire demon and a greater despair demon in addition to your rage demon, right? None of those are pushovers.  I know you can take them out” not ‘kill,’ I noticed, “pretty easily, but this is the definition of ‘asking for trouble.’”

I listened to the odd thrums and sliding and humming and crackling that came from far below us as the demons moved.  Maybe spoke.  They didn't seem to fly off the handle when the only other 'people' around were other demons.  After a pause, I asked, “Elden, what did Cassandra and Varric tell you about what happened yesterday?  After I went tearing off through the woods after them.”

“They were ambushed, it wasn’t going well, you stepped in and saved them, and it resulted in your first blood.”

“Mmhm. And what did you make of the fact that there were no bodies?”

“They were supposed to have been out of sight with nothing worth claiming.”

‘Supposed’ to have been.

“And?” I prompted.

“. . . And there was obviously something they weren’t telling us.”

God I liked her sometimes.  “Right. So when I tell you I’ll be fine, you can trust me.  As a general rule, that's something you should be doing.  If I tell you I can handle something, I one hundred percent can, and while I appreciate you worrying and, given how few fights we've been in together I can understand your caution, I need to know that when I tell you something when it <i>matters,</i> you're going to listen and trust that I know what I'm talking about.  If I didn't, I wouldn't be talking.  That's how I am.  I don't half-ass and I don't bullshit.

". . . If it makes you feel any better, dawn is, what, an hour away? If I’m not back by then, come in, guns blazing.”

“Guns?”

“Uh. . . weapons drawn. Anyway my point is, this is kind of an obsessive idea of mine.  It’s going to happen.  So it can happen now, with you as a safety net, oooor. . . .”

“Or you can sneak off alone and do it later when no one knows what's happening.”

“Bingo.  I knew you were smart.”

“. . . Half an hour.”

“What?”

“You have half an hour. I’d feel better with five minutes.”

I turned to look at her. “How are you arguing with your Prophet?”

“I thought you hated being called that.  And I told you I'm not Andrastian.”

“Only when it’s not to my strategic advantage in an argument, and you have been watching me over the last week like you were waiting for sunlight to come out of my eyeballs.”

She narrowed her eyes but shifted subtly, uncomfortable.  “Are we arguing?”

“Fine, ‘discussion.’ I can work with half an hour. You’re right, it probably is markedly less suicidal, and it’d be stupid to go out trying to rescue a handful of demons and doom millions of people in trade.”

“What do you know, she can be reasonable.”  She added at a volume I wasn't meant to hear, "When she feels like it.

I sniggered silently. “Ok. Now shoo. I’ve got important science to conduct.”

“. . . Creators and Maker forgive me if she dies out here tonight,” she muttered to herself as she walked away.

When I couldn’t hear her any more, I turned my attention back to the demons below. A fourth one, a simple wraith, had returned.

I wasn’t sure exactly how to go about this, so I started with what Fen’harel had taught me: feel things.  Cautiously, I let my essence uncurl from myself and extend its reach. It was a stretch to get it down near the Rift, as if glass hardening the further it got from its heat source, but it made it to Despair.  The demon stopped when I brushed up against it, and I pulled back immediately. When it returned to what it was doing, I tried again. It stopped again. But it didn’t look up at me, so slowly, I let myself out to meet it.

This was different than anything in the Fade. It was like molasses in a hard shell. But I could feel it there, and for a moment, despair itself flooded me, and it was a struggle to separate myself from the overwhelming emotion.  This one was grayed desperation and writhing and sharp, acid heartache.  Mourning, I thought.

What was opposite despair or mourning?  It was the absence of. . . ah.  Hope.  Carefully and slowly, watching for any reaction from the demon, I sifted through the small universe it occupied in my ara'lin and looked for a miniscule, buried spark of hope. But the harder I looked, the further it felt like I was getting buried by something, wrapped and tied up and turned around. I pulled back and reset myself, started over.  But the second I started looking, the same thing happened.

I was doing something wrong.  What that might be was beyond my ken.  Maybe more than one thing opposed Despair or Mourning.  Maybe Mourning wasn't its particular specialty.  Maybe I needed to be in the Fade. Maybe I was just plain doing something wrong, or messing with something too far above my pay grade.  Maybe I was looking for the impossible.

Asking Elden to keep this from the others could get too messy.  Then again, if I closed it myself, there was no way to keep its disappearance from her, which would lead to questions, _if_ she really could be trusted.

I decided to just go back to camp and start breakfast for the others. I could make up a lie easily enough about why I hadn’t had us close it the night before. I did trust Elden to keep the rest to herself.  For now.

When I made it back to camp, she had beaten me to breakfast, and Solas was working at some of the elfroot I had gathered the night before.  The rogue looked up at me curiously, and I gave a fractional shake of my head and went to tend to the horses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Researching for a future chapter, I've come aware of the fact that it would take like. . .five, six days to ride from one side of the Hinterlands to the other, making the timeline in this chapter completely impossible. I might restructure some chapters and move the wolf scene around later. Just so you know I know, in the meantime.
> 
> EDIT: The claim of millions of people comes from [here,](http://dragonagefics.tumblr.com/post/125996509588/meridok-i-did-a-thing-have-thing-friends) which puts the total area of Thedas, both land and drinkable water, at about 1,915,900 square miles, and [this,](http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm) which talks about population density in medieval times (30 - 120 people per square mile). So even at a very conservative estimate. . . that's millions of people, not even counting the ones who live underground.


	15. Boss

Cassandra pulled her horse up next to mine. Billowing, lumpy, tall clouds dominated the sky, flat on the bottoms as if they were all pressed against an invisible ceiling. The morning was pleasantly cool. Or as Varric put it, “colder than my editor’s shriveled black heart.” I may have had a small pocket of warmth follow him after that.

“I was thinking of the night we conversed in the Fade,” Cassandra began. I waited patiently for her to go on. “How did you find us?”

I sat lazily, reins loose against my horse’s neck and trying not to squirm in the god-forsaken saddle. “I didn’t. Solas did. But I have learned how to do it since. I found Cole later that same night. I can explain it if you like, but I’m guessing Fade theory isn’t the point of your question.”

“No, it is not. I simply wondered. . . could you find others in the same manner?”

“Sure. If I know them. Well, you know, ‘know’ them,” I said with air quotes. Which I then had to explain. “If it’s someone I don’t know, I’d have to ask my teacher about it.”

“Your teacher? Do you mean this friend of yours in the Fade?” She asked dubiously. “You have not spoken of him. I will admit to being curious,” she said, her tone not limited to simple curiosity.

Solas kicked his horse forward.

“The very same,” I replied happily, as if I hadn’t heard the wariness.

Bald-o landed on Cassandra’s other side with perfect timing to white-night away any possible questions about Fen’harel. How I had ever believed that the two of them weren’t connected was beyond me. Maybe they were twins. God, that would be traumatizing. Suddenly I pictured Fen’harel with a round, shiny bald spot on the top of his head.

“A Dreamer of sufficient skill can find anyone in the Fade,” Solas told Cassandra, “provided a few details.”

“I see. And do you believe Nuaelan possess sufficient skill?”

“She does,” he replied, noble and scholarly. He had been ignoring me all morning, but it felt more a polite allowance than a catty game. It had been heaven.

I wanted to ask how he would know about my skill, but that would mean breaking this perfect bubble I was in.

Cassandra looked down, thoughtful, and didn’t speak again for some time. “Do you think you could find Hawke?”

“Absolutely,” I replied readily, voice bright.

I could practically hear Varric stiffen. Well. . . and literally hear it in the creak of leather and cloth, the rise of tension in his scent.

“Her help could be invaluable to our cause. We searched for her for years before the Conclave. But I suppose you know that.” For the first time from anyone, it was more an allowance than a challenge.

An uncomfortable beat passed before I replied, “I said I _could_ find her, Cassandra. I didn’t say I _would.”_

“What? Why wouldn’t you?” She asked, surprised.

I had to keep from looking over my shoulder at Varric. “Well. . . don’t you think she’s earned a break? Not that I imagine she’s taking one, because I don’t think she ever met a problem she could say ‘no’ to. We’ll get by just fine without her help. We would have needed her for information after we found out that Corypheus really was Corypheus, but I already know everything she would have told us. We don’t ‘need’ her. Provided I don’t screw things up spectacularly.” It wasn’t a joke.

“I would have really liked to meet Fenris, though,” I said absently. “Right up until he took one look at me and started squeezing my organs from the inside,” I muttered to myself.

“How would we have located her?” Cassandra asked, hopeful, I thought.

“With a little faith, luck, and pixie dust.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Never mind. It was a joke.”

“Wait wait wait,” Varric said, kicking his horse forward. “What was that about Corypheus?” I felt Elden stiffen behind us. I looked to Cassandra, question on my face as I darted my eyes in Elden’s direction. She nodded.

Very much ‘if you say so, but I think it’s a risk,’ I said “Cliff Notes version again? Yes, ancient Tevinter magister darkspawn, really did set foot in the black city with six others because _giant fucking idiots,_ which of course is an oversimplification but seriously. We know who he was before he went Fade-walking, Old Gods are real, the Blight isn’t a punishment for man’s hubris, but it may be a biproduct all the same, blah blah. And we’re calling him Sethius, that’s his human name.

"He survived death by body-snatching Larius, which, by the way, is why the Wardens didn’t mention him when you interviewed them, Cassandra. He was long gone. And _then_ things got weird. That’s how he survives. Like an archdemon, he will--” I sputtered to a stop, realizing I was about to give away one of the Wardens’ Big Secrets.

“What?” Cassandra asked urgently. “He will what?”

“Sorry, I misspoke. It wasn’t my secret to tell. But like I said, he can’t be killed except by a means we’re not equipped for just yet. A Gray Warden _might_ be able to end him, given the right circumstances. Convenient that they’ve all disappeared, no?”

“Except for the one you mentioned to Leliana.”

“I did say that, didn’t I.” I wanted to mention the other surviving magisters from Sethius’ doomed expedition into the Fade, but I figured they had more than enough to process already. I wanted to think I was underestimating them, but had to “remind” myself that other people weren’t as good at processing as much as I was. One world-ending ancient darkspawn magister was probably enough.

“. . . I think I’m going to stop asking you to explain things,” Varric said. “Or being in the room when you talk. Ever.”

“My feelings, Varric. Ow.” I replied. “No but seriously, I’ll try to ease up around you if you want. Wouldn’t want to upset the Viscount.”

“Viscount?” He laughed incredulously, then abruptly sobered. “You’re not saying. . . no. I’d never be that stupid.”

“Yeah,” I said blithely. “I’m probably just screwing with you anyway. I mean, who would vote you in?” I finished with a laugh.

He chuckled back obligingly, but really only looked disturbed.

Cassandra made a disgusted noise and urged her horse forward with a shake of her head.

“Hey, Trouble,” Varric said quietly, leaning in once she was far enough ahead. “What you said about Hawke. . . thank you.”

“For what? Denying the request or not giving you away?” I asked with a knowing, brattish grin.

“. . . Both, I guess,” he said uneasily.

I answered by turning a small grin and a conspiratorial wink on him.

A beat of silence passed, then I said, “If you ever want me to get a message to her, I can. Quick as going to sleep. Well, as long as she’s asleep at the same time.”

“. . . Will do, kid. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go re-examine some life choices.”

 

* * * * *

 

I journaled while we rode in silence, one leg tucked under me on the saddle, other foot dangling out of the stirrup. It was effortless balancing that way, but still more fun than sitting like a lump while the sun tracked across the sky. The Crossroads was our next stop, and if I walked in with everyone else on horseback, people would think I was a page or something, especially given my ears. I buried them in my hair before I braided it back - an enterprise that was testing my patience more every time. It was either too smooth or too fine to submit to simple binding for any length of time. But I was only careful to keep my ears concealed around strangers, and it was distracting. They were so sensitive, it was like having someone scratching and poking you all over your body _and_ teasing you sexually while trying to carry on a serious conversation. I figured it was good exercise. When I could tolerate it.

“What do you write in there, anyway, Trouble?” Varric asked. Cassandra had been kind enough to take the lead so my horse could follow aimlessly. “Your neurotic tutor and I had a bet going.”

“What does a person write by themselves in a private book on a daily basis? Hard to say,” I ventured. And which one of them had been dumb enough to bet _against_ journaling? “Obviously I’ve been waxing poetic about what a cute couple you and Cassandra would make.”

He choked on a mouthful of bread. “Excuse me?” he laughed in disbelief.

“Oh yeah,” I said. “You’re an author, you should know. Two desirable people, passionate and beautiful and in their primes, constantly at each other’s throats, picking at one another like children with crushes.” I said as if dreamy. “People eat that up. That whole passionate sexual tension thing-- oh my god I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” I laughed; Cassandra had turned around in her saddle, and the restraint of her faith was clearly threatening to buckle under a building urge to hurt me. “I mean, scientifically speaking, anger and lust are-- Completely far apart!” I backpedaled at the look on her face. “Totally not the same at all. Besides I mean, you two would kill each other.

“. . .I wasn’t being sarcastic,” I added when no one said anything. “You’d kill each other. More or less.” ‘More’ being Cassandra literally murdering him in a fit of rage, ‘less’ being the fact that it would be the result of years of snipes and humorous jibes on the part of Varric.

 

* * * * *

 

Solas kept his eyes off Nua as they neared the Crossroads, but his attention was not truly on anything else. It had become an unfruitful habit.

Inquisition livery had been fastened to their mounts’ saddles when they last stopped. It draped across the animals’ chests and over their hindquarters, announcing the party. The small town was recovering with impressive speed, thanks no doubt in part to the “Prophet’s” foresight.

Her demeanor changed as they neared the area. Subtle at first, and most of it beyond her notice. She realized what she was doing, of course - adjusting her clothing, ensuring her face was clean, tidying her hair, straightening her posture - but she did not know _why_ she was doing it, not truly, not at first. Not even when she pulled her neck straight and set her jaw to a confident, relaxed angle as the first of the soldiers and townspeople came into view.

She was balanced, self-possessed, regal and commanding, and perfectly aware of her surroundings, as she was trained to be. For all she seemed to remember nothing of the past, for all so much of her was so very different, Solas had yet to see any of her training fail her. He had not seen such grace as she displayed during her combat assessment since the time of their people. It still caused a sharp ache in him that she should not remember it. Her of all people.

The inspiration of her decision not a day earlier to leave the refugees to the care of the cult in the ruins to the northeast showed abundantly. Humans and elves alike, refugees, townspeople, soldiers, all whispered to one another as their party walked the roads. Word traveled fast, especially in such times as these.

From what he gathered listening in, the cultists had appeared as if by magic, coming with an abundance of supplies, many of which the people had only just realized were desperately needed. They stayed to help anyone who required aid, from providing an escort to a neighboring town to watching over a group of children so their parents could work. Even now they were mixed in with onlookers at the sides of the road, their heads bowed, fists clasped to their chests as Nua passed. Even her horse, normally a tired thing, seemed to hold itself taller and to walk with more grace and pride. It was unsurprising.

One scout near the eastern road out of the swollen town had mentioned a desire for blankets not an hour before Nua’s people delivered dozens, along with boots and warm clothing. The cultists had been well stocked and claimed a number of wealthy humans among their ranks, so supplies were readily available, and none hesitated to give them up at their herald's order. She displayed her kindness for those in need, as always. But despite her instructions, which Solas did not doubt were followed, word had gotten out that she was behind their miraculous appearance.

Putting her new followers to the task had also allowed for the party’s impressive progress closing rifts and lessening the scourge of bandits, templars, and bands of mages, which likewise did not escape the people’s notice. Refugees poured in hourly, nearly all of them bearing tales of Inquisition rescue, aid and heroism, improving conditions, and on one occasion, a battle with demons and the closing of a Rift. The teller swore a golden halo surrounded Nua as she closed it. An obvious embellishment, but a popular one. For Solas, concerning. There was too much unknown about her, and so how readily or enthusiastically she might take to power. If she regained herself at the head of a potentially powerful organization and decided to, for some reason, oppose his plans. . . . That was the last scenario he would care to live.

Along with the rumors of Nua’s abilities, her foreknowledge, her strange beauty and stranger magic, her alien tongue, the mystery of her appearance, the affect of her ara'lin on creatures ignorant of its existence, and now the fact that she seemed to want to help everyone in need but not to receive any credit, much of what met the party was hushed and fervent whispers, more hopes than fears. People spoke of the Maker’s Prophet, delivered to the world by Andraste herself. People spoke in hushed tones of the Maker’s own Daughter. It was not only the cultists or Inquisition soldiers who clasped fists to their breasts and bowed their heads in respect. It was astounding. And yet one more thing that was troubling. Nua and the Seeker's people had only just begun.

“Inquisition!” A low voice called.

A Qunari, Solas noticed with distaste. First from him was the flush of faint arousal, same as any other male when first they saw her. He did not bear the markings common among Tal-Vashoth, but neither did he have the composure and reserve or the spiced smell, undercut with jungle or musk or arid desert, of the few faithful that Solas had encountered. He sat with invisible, wary caution, watching the man with a mask of benign curiosity.

Nua’s ara’lin came _alive_ when she saw the giant - with recognition, joy, anticipation, love. Trust. Another would-be companion, then. Solas felt a stab of annoyance at how easily she welcomed strangers when she all but loathed him. He sighed quietly.

The man, massive even for one of his kind, raised a hand in greeting as he came forward and introduced himself. The Iron Bull, leader of the group of mercenaries Nua had requested the Commander hire. His troop must have been nearby for the man to have met up with their party so soon. Another curiosity, perhaps.

As The Iron Bull neared, Nua stuttered with disbelief, most of it concealed. She was appalled at his size - mounted on her horse, she sat at eye-level with him. His bicep was larger around than her waist. She would have had to crane her neck to meet his gaze were she on her feet. Solas nudged his horse to the side so he could see her face.

“Hissrad,” she greeted quietly, so much warmth and love in her voice. . . . It was the greeting Solas should have gotten. She was physically restraining herself from reaching out and wrapping her arms around the man’s neck. A neck which was nearly twice as large as her thigh. Solas felt an unwelcome heave of something oddly like jealousy. Everything about her was throwing him into chaos. He had not felt such a thing since his youth, and rarely over her. He had become so fixated on the puzzle and mystery of her that it was causing him to become possessive.

At the name she spoke, Solas felt only shock: this man was a spy for his people, which explained his odd state and why he had been so nearby. Nua knew this, and yet she embraced him into their ranks. Solas detected to ulterior motives from her; there was a healthy restraint, a wariness, but he had seen her react to no one thus far with so much warmth and welcome.

‘The Iron Bull’ clearly shared Solas’ surprise. “Uhhhh. . . huh. So I see where the rumors of that whole ‘oracle’ thing come from,” he rumbled expressively.

Nua laughed, and Solas’ chest constricted at the sound. “Oracle?” she asked incredulously, smile wrapping its way around her eyes.

“But not so much the part about you not speaking the language.”

“Oh, I didn’t,” she said, smile in her voice. “I learned.”

“Nah, supposedly you spoke a language no one had even heard of. Didn't understand a word of Common.”

 _”Yes,”_ she said in her tongue, mischief entering her tone. _”It was inconvenient and obnoxious. I learned, like I said. Through a spell, but I don’t imagine you want to know that part. Not a big fan of weird magical stuff, your people.”_

“That’s sure as shit not like anything I’ve ever heard.” Solas saw through Nua changes in the man that should have been invisible - would have, had she not known to look for them. She was rapidly changing in the Qunari’s estimation. “But from reports. . . well how long have you been awake? Supposedly you got found under one of those creepy green demon-holes when the Conclave went south.”

“Awake?" She paused, thinking. "A week and a couple of days. In this world for about two weeks total, as far as I know. ” She shrugged, hiding mirth behind her eyes. “They got me a tutor. It’s English, by the way. My language,” she provided, and had he not known better, Solas would have sworn it was _love_ on her face as she spoke to the man. Something roiled angrily in his chest and a muscle in his jaw twitched. This was beyond ridiculous. But she could not avoid sleep much longer; perhaps he could find some clarity as Fen’harel. She did not loathe _his_ company.

She had become puzzles within puzzles.

Iron Bull’s brows shot up. He repeated the word, “English,” butchering its pronunciation. She found it _endearing._ “Huh. So you really are from another world? In any case, I take it I have you to thank for the hire? I had this whole speech ready about the Ben-Hassrath, but it seems like you don’t need to hear it so much.”

Solas was unsure what to make of his honesty. If he was loyal to the Qun, it was likely a mask he wore in order to do his job, whatever that ultimately was. Hiding in plain sight could be difficult, but unrivaled in its advantages. Nua’s insight was impressive, but not flawless. The man may have come as an assassin if word of her abilities had already spread as far as Par Vollen. An assassin or a kidnapper. Solas’ lips twitched at the surprise Iron Bull would be in for if he tried. Still, there was no way to know how prepared or informed he may be.

Nua’s smile widened, wrapping around her eyes. She practically glowed, and Solas would have been shocked if she even realized what she was doing to those around her. Elden already looked on her nearly as if a deity when she thought no one else saw. The sentiment clung to nearly everyone they encountered in the field and was spreading to those in the town who her ara’lin reached.

“Yes,” she said, “technically, but it wasn’t my coin or my permission, just my request, and no. No, I don’t. I know your story well enough.” She laughed, a musical, crystalline sound. Anyone who wasn’t already watching the exchange and was within the field of her ara’lin, which was sprawled like a cat happily laying in the sun, turned to look. “Your communications will all have to go through our spymaster, of course.” ‘Not that I think for a moment you couldn’t find a way to get something out in secret if you needed to,’ was the gist of what she didn't say. “And thank you in advance for sharing the pieces of intelligence from your own reports.”

“. . .Ok, that’s gonna take some serious getting used to. She always say weird shit like that out of the blue?” he asked, looking at Cassandra and Solas. "The Iron Bull, by the way. Pleasure to meet you."

“That’s _nothing,_ Tiny,” the dwarf answered in their place.

“Great,” the Qunari said, eyeing Nua. “That’s great. Should make everything easier, eh?” He boomed, as if making a joke of it. How much of his joviality was sincere, Solas suspected was another matter.

Nua smiled in answer. “Where are the Chargers?”

“Sent ‘em ahead to Haven. We were nearby when one of your scouts found us. She didn’t even blink when I told her our price, just said she was ‘authorized to pay' whatever was required.”

“I may have sold the worth of your band rather enthusiastically. So,” she said, tone and demeanor turning more serious, “I have to go meet a nun, and you’re going to need a horse before we can do much of anything - assuming you’re ready to travel?”

He gave a nod. “Yeah. But what’s a nun?”

“Oh, uh. . . she’s a. . . Chantry lady. A Mother. Thick accent. Big lips. Not as judgey as most of them, actually in it to help people. It shouldn’t take long.” She looked back at us. “Would the rest of you take Bull back to camp, get him up to speed, and see if we have a horse that won’t literally be crushed to death by him? And get him any supplies he needs. Cassandra and I can handle this on our own.”

She was hiding something, but hiding it well. After last night, he still thought his best course of action was to stay back. Either she would tire of the distance and try to close it - unlikely, given her opinion of him - or at the very least it would ease tensions and give him an opportunity to sit back and watch. He was still waiting for his memories of their second meeting to vanish, but either time was not so straightforward as he hoped, or it was still to take place despite his efforts to anchor her in the present. Everything between them would have been so much simpler if it had never taken place.

He did not acknowledge her order - or how easily she already gave them - just as she had not looked at him when she gave it. He simply cast one last surreptitious look in her direction and turned his horse to follow the others, cloaked tightly in his ara’lin. The Qunari kept pace without a problem. The camp was nearby, and he was unlikely to tire, given that he was apparently used to traveling on foot. He and the dwarf were soon chatting as if old friends. Elden, true to nature, stayed out of it and kept close watch. She was obviously unhappy about being separated from Nua, and suspicious of the new party member. Solas would have one ally in this, at least.

 

* * * * *

 

“What was that you called the Qunari?” Cassandra asked when the others were out of sight. “Was it a name?”

“Hissrad. Under the Qun, it’s his name _and_ title. He’s a spy for the Ben Hassrath.”

“A spy?” Cassandra asked, alarmed. “A Qunari spy? And you are letting him into the Inquisition?”

I nodded calmly, but noted her choice of word: “letting.” Not “requesting.”

“He makes no secret of who or what he is,” I said. “It’s really rather clever, actually. Had he come to us, he would have told us about it immediately. All he’s ordered to do right now, or would have been ordered to do, was keep watch on the situation and make reports. The Qunari aren’t stupid - they know they Breach is a danger to everyone, not just southerners.

“We’ll get information from his people in exchange, and his company may lead to an alliance with them down the road, but don’t hold your breath. The circumstances surrounding it are tenuous at best. In any event, you can trust him as much as anyone else I’ll keep close to me.”

“He is another person you ‘know,’ then?”

“As well Cullen or Varric or Leliana,” I said calmly.

“Or me.”

I pursed my lips uncomfortably. I had specifically neglected to lump her into the ‘I know everything about you’ group. “Or you,” I agreed.

“But you do not know Elden?”

“Not one bit.”

“Hm.” She paused. “I wish to thank you for being considerate yesterday. But I would appreciate it if you would not interfere in my personal matters.”

I looked over at her in surprise, hiding a sting of hurt. “Come again?”

“You asked Varric to resume writing a certain book series,” she said tersely, neglecting to mention the name even when no one she knew was near.

I snorted a laugh. “Who said that was for you?”

She gave me an odd look. “In the Fade, you started to mention it.”

“If I wear pink will you assume I’m trying to flirt with you?”

“I. . . what? No! I simply assumed. . . .”

“Noted,” I said, already thinking about how to “accidentally” leave the books somewhere she’d find them as Varric wrote them. “I’ll try not to butt in without invitation.”

“Thank you,” she said, a little uncomfortably, I thought. “The things you know. . . do you know of Regalyan?”

I sobered. “Only by reference. I knew who he was and how he passed. I know he was important to you.”

“Was it. . . do you know if he suffered?”

I was quiet, the sounds of whispers and bird calls, insects, heartbeats and digesting food and. . . . I didn’t know the answer. But that blast. . . . “I think it was instant, Cassandra. For everyone.”

“But you do not know?”

“Not like I know some things. But the shape the temple was left in. . . that would have been done by an _immensely_ powerful force. I don’t think anyone in there felt a thing.” Except the Divine, and whoever had suffered to give me the Anchor.

“. . . Thank you.”

I waited just long enough to be polite before speaking again. “So. . . I mean Varric is already going to be _writing_ the books, should I just burn them as I’m done reading them?” God help me if I actually had to read one of those monsters.

“No!” She cried, but immediately seemed to realize her slip. “I may not care for him, but if he is going to do the work, he should publish them and be paid.”

“He doesn’t like the serial, Cassandra. He’s only doing it for me.”

“I. . . still, I think it would be unfair. The series had fans, if not as many as Hard In Hightown,” she said with derision.

“Ah. Ok, well maybe I’ll find someone somewhere along the way who can help me figure out what to do with them, then. Thanks for the advice,” I said brightly.

I could see Giselle in the distance, and I had no idea when I might get Cassandra alone like this again. I nudged my horse closer to hers and lowered my voice. “Listen, Cassandra. I’m going to speak to Leliana tonight, but I need you to do something for me.”

“What is it?”

“I need you to give her a message. I don’t trust it by raven, and I don’t want it spoken of outside of you and the advisors. There will be a message Josephine needs to get as soon as possible, too. I was hoping to have you there when we talked, and then to leave you with her so the two of you could discuss what I have to say. Assuming that’s even possible. You’ll have to get me alone in the morning to tell me if it works.”

“Of course.”

I nodded. I told her about the contract against Josephine’s family with the House of Repose and who had ordered it.

“I don’t know if she has the political pull to do what she needs to get it removed yet, but if she doesn’t now, the Inquisition will in a matter of months. I just didn’t want her to waste the lives or the sleepless nights in the meantime.”

“I will tell her,” Cassandra assured me. “What is the other matter?”

I pursed my lips. This one made me uneasy just thinking about it. “When we’re done here, I need to go somewhere, if there’s time. There are some circumstances. . . . I need Leliana to find an ironclad reason why Solas, and I don’t care who else, has to go somewhere away from Haven and do something for about six weeks, assuming I have that long before the meeting in Val Royeaux.” We had at least three days left in the Hinterlands to accomplish the bare essentials, and it would take three weeks to get to the Arbor Wilds from here. “Better if he has to depart before we’re even done here. I need him out of the loop until my trip is over.”

“Solas? Why? You insisted he be added to the war council.”

“Yes I did, and I stand by that decision. But until I get this out of the way, there are a lot of things I can’t tell any of you, and this is one of them. There are hoops I have to jump through. I have questions of my own, and where I want to go, I might be able to find answers. Until then, there’s too much up in the air, and I need Solas in a place where he can’t possibly know what I’m doing or where I’m going until it’s done.”

“Where _do_ you wish to go?”

I lowered my voice further. “The Arbor Wilds. There’s a temple there I need to visit.”

“. . . You aren’t going to tell me any more about this, are you?” She asked flatly.

“Until I go, there’s not much of anything I can tell anyone. I’d prefer to get out of that phase as soon as possible, because a lot is coming, and frankly there are some big decisions I don’t want to have to make alone.”

“. . . Very well. I will ensure Leliana gets the message.”

 

* * * * *

 

The meeting with Giselle went as expected. Until she told us the clerics would convene in Val Royeaux in less than a month.

“News of the Conclave traveled quickly,” the Mother explained, “and with the Chantry in such disarray, only enough time was given to ensure attendance for those who could leave immediately.”

It was stupid. As gutted as the Chantry was, they would need everyone they could get at the meeting. With _Thedas_ in such disarray, it was unreasonable to expect that many could just pick up and leave for months at a moment’s notice. For the same reasons, it would have been impossible to push the meeting back any more than absolutely necessary.

We thanked her for her time and consideration despite the more unflattering rumors about me, and extended an invitation to Haven for her and her people. We ensured she had any supplies she needed - not necessary, it turned out, as the cult had a representative at the Crossroads already seeing to such things - and left to meet the others at the nearby Inquisition camp.

I insisted on walking, and didn’t say a word the whole way. Three weeks from here to the Arbor Wilds. A good two weeks from there to Val Royeaux. Maybe there was a way to cover that distance more quickly. Unfortunately, the only two people I could ask were also the only two people who couldn’t know.

 

* * * * *

 

To save us time, I split us into two teams. Solas, Cassandra, and Elden would take care of non-mark-related grunt work, and Bull, Varric and I would cycle through the Rifts. Cole would go wherever he wanted. In three days, we would meet up at Dennet’s farm. I was looking forward to the break; Varric and Bull both paid attention, but it was in different, more veiled ways than Solas or Elden. They were also unlikely to ask the sort of questions Cassandra might.

When we set camp that evening, I asked Varric to take a walk with me. When we’d gone far enough that Solas wouldn’t have been able to overhear - I didn’t know how good Quinari senses were - I stopped and turned to him.

“You know how I know things I’m not supposed to know.”

“Kind of hard to miss, your magic oracleness.”

“Yeah. Thanks for that. Anyway, I know I’m going to have to make a lot of shitty decisions for a lot of other people before this is over, but I’d rather not start until I have to and. . . well, this one just seemed too personal.”

“Is this going to be another one of those conversations I wish I wasn’t here for?” He asked warily.

“Honestly? Probably yes. But it’s Bianca. The woman, not the crossbow,” I clarified.

Shock registered on his face, but I also saw the Varric that ran a spy network fall into place. I felt bad for him, only because I couldn’t imagine how it felt to be surprised time and again by the evidence of someone who knew ‘everything’ really, actually knowing things they had no right to know.

“You have a choice to make,” I said. “There’s a red lyrium mining operation going on here in the Hinterlands--” Varric swore soundly, and I paused to let him finish. “The natural progression of this situation would be that months from now, Bianca would show up to bring it to our attention and, for her own reasons, come with us to take care of it.

“You’d get to see her. We would travel with her here, take care of it, travel back. You’d be with her for at least three weeks, probably more like four or five. The downside is that the lyrium would be mined in the intervening months.”

It was a moment before he answered. “Look,” he said uneasily, “I appreciate you thinking about me, but there’s no choice, here. Red lyrium is bad shit. If we have a chance to destroy some of it and stop it from spreading, we take it. There’s no question.”

I looked at him, trying to figure out if I should tell him what else he would have learned from Bianca when she came to us. Me, I was easy; I always wanted to know the truth, no exceptions, no matter how ugly it was. Other people weren’t so simple.

Varric was like anyone else: he had a tendency to shy away from difficult, painful things. Bianca was hardly a part of his life, and _knowing_ the person who inadvertently tipped Sethius off to red lyrium didn’t change anything. Would he want to know the truth she would have admitted to him once she knew she couldn’t hide it any more? Or would he want her memory protected?

“Varric do you prefer hard truths or beautiful lies?” I asked suddenly.

“Me? I’m an author, kid. And a compulsive liar. What do you think?”

I smiled. “Fair enough. Now let’s get back before The Iron Bull thinks we’re doing more than making out.”

Varric laughed. “Hey, I’m a one crossbow kind of man, Prophet.”

I stifled a growl, but it rumbled silently in my chest. Time was past I start getting used to hearing it.

“Don’t worry,” I assured lightly. “If it comes up, I’ll tell him your barrel grip is even bigger up close.”

 

* * * * *

 

“You know that’s the first time I’ve seen you eat since we met,” Varric said as I worked at a bowl of meat-and-water stew. I had a packet of herbs from Haven to add, and Bull had something he said would thicken it up. I didn’t know if it was my heightened sense of taste, but the stuff was “food” by only the most technical definition.

“I’ve eaten,” I said around a mouthful. “I ate as much as a druffalow the night I woke up.

“Ah,” he said, feigning lightness. “So that’s one meal in, what, a week and a half?”

“Wait, you don’t eat?” Bull asked. “How do you not eat?”

“Different physiology,” I said, trying to loose a piece of meat stuck between what I had found to be unusually sharp canines. Bull looked at the tips appreciatively. “And I ate a little the next morning too, Varric. My body doesn’t talk to me very well, though, so I could literally starve to death on accident. Since I don’t have any memories, I don’t know how often I’m supposed to eat, so I figure once a week or so should be good, and if my weight changes I can go from there.”

“I thought you were just an elf,” Bull said.

“Yeah so did I. But I don’t really look like an elf, do I?” I asked with the wry arch of a brow, spreading my arms to invite inspection.

“I figured you for a halfling until I saw your ears. I would have said human, but you’ve got those bright eyes, and there’s something willowy about you, even through the curves.”

I nodded. “I’m not small like elves are. I’m not _built_ like elves are.” I suppressed a shudder at the thought of modern elves. I was going to have to find a way around my aversion to them, quickly. “On the inside. . . all the more.”

“She’s hungry,” Cole said, looking out into the dark beyond the ring of firelight. “Mouths to feed, too many missed hunts, weak and wasting, tired, smells so good. . . .”

I followed his gaze and my ears told me the rest. I tipped my bowl over the cooking pot and drained as much of the liquid as I could, leaving several chunks of meat behind. I held the bowl out to him, and he looked from it up to my face.

“I need the bowl back so I can drink the rest of my dinner, but give this to her.”

“Thank you,” he said emphatically, though he seemed beyond surprised.

Cole went over to the Fennec who, unafraid of him, took the meat. “She cares,” I heard him say quietly to the animal as it ate.

Bull looked at Varric.

“Don’t ask me, Tiny. They do weird shit all the time. Every time you think you’re getting used to it, she does something weirder.”

“Next time I’m not telling you about the hot tub,” I said petulantly.

“You don’t think I’d get tipped off by everyone else talked about it?”

“Fine. Then next time I won’t make one at all just to spite you.”

“Has anyone ever told you you have a mean streak?”

“How would I know?”

“So wait,” Bull said, “how many rumors about you _aren’t_ true?”

“Honestly,” I said, reclining on the ground and watching Cole’s back, “at this point I’d put my money on the rumors _under_ selling said weird shit.”

Bull gave me a look.

“No, she’s right. And I’ve only been around her for a week. You want to see something really impressive, spar with her some time. No magic.”

“Yeah I don’t think it would go over well if a Qunari heathen snapped the Maker’s Chosen in half like a dry stick.”

I snorted and Varric laughed. “Remind me to put money down on it first, then. In fact, how about ten crowns on a round of arm wrestling right now?”

“Only if I get fifty percent,” I said without missing a beat.

“Fifty. . . that’s highway robbery!”

“I’m pretty sure that fifty percent of ten crowns is a lot more than the zero percent of zero crowns you’ll get when I refuse to cooperate because you didn’t give me what I wanted.”

“. . . You should meet my editor. You two would love each other,” he said drily.

“No, your editor sounds terrifying, thank you.” I looked over at Bull. “What about it? Want to play?” I asked with a flirtatious raise of my brows.

“I think I must be missing something. What are you going to do, hit some pressure points or something, paralyze my arm?”

I laughed. “No. No tricks. Just all this. . . raw power and muscle,” I said, gesturing sardonically to my arms. I rolled onto my stomach in the dirt and held a hand out, propped up on my elbow and ready to go, eyebrows raised in challenge.

He looked at me dubiously.

“Come on,” I cajoled. “I’m honestly a little curious about this, myself. Can’t break me like a stick just by arm wrestling, can you?”

He looked at me another moment then shook his head and, with a heaved breath, lowered himself to the ground opposite me. “This is ridiculous, you know,” he muttered as he put his hand in mine. It looked like a child’s next to his. A small child’s.

I had been struck all day not only by how truly massive he was - much, much bigger than I had expected - but by how alien. He wasn’t just a big man with gray skin and horns. Even more than elves, he was genuinely _different._ Other. I thought I could sit and stare at him for an hour, easy.

“Going to break her hand,” Bull muttered to himself.

My lips turned down in a suppressed grin.

Cole wandered back and put my bowl where I had been sitting as Varric came to stand over us. “Standard rules,” he said officially, “no cheating.”

“What standard rules?” I asked. “I’ve never arm wrestled before. . . .I think.”

“Just push his hand until it hits the ground, Trouble, and try not to lose me my ten crowns.Or break his sword arm.”

“So much faith.”

“Hey, I heard about the mineral crate incident.”

“Those things were full of _ore?”_

“Why did you think most of them were being carried by two burly men?”

“Honestly I thought I just. . . got there when only empty boxes were left. They seemed awfully light, though.”

Bull was looking between me and Varric curiously. He knew what he was hearing, but didn’t believe it, I figured. Maybe he thought we were trying to hustle him. But of course he couldn’t figure out how, since how could he lose to a woman whose upper arm was smaller than his wrist?

Varric chuckled, made sure we were ready, then gave us the go.

I felt light pressure on my hand, and when it didn’t move, Bull’s eyes snapped up to mine to find a satisfied, predatory sort of grin on my face.

Carefully, testingly, he increased the force. Then again. I saw the moment he turned serious and put his weight behind it. His muscles popped to life as they engaged.

I wasn’t sure how this experience could have _not_ surprised me, but everything about it was a revelation. That I withstood him was a revelation. That he was able to push my hand at all to the side was a revelation. That my body was unworried about the humongous opponent was a revelation.

I imagined that if I had a normal body, arm-wrestling a teenaged version of myself would have gone something like this. Did I have to try? Yes. Was there any way he could win so long as I really did try? No. This had to have looked like some kind of parody to anyone watching - it looked like a parody to _me_ \- and yet here I was, holding off a man with muscles that didn’t look real half the time.

I watched his face contort and then strain, listened to his heart speed and smelled as he started to sweat and flood with adrenaline. I didn’t let him push my arm more than three inches past center before I slammed his into the ground so hard that it disturbed the fine, dry soil. It wasn’t effortless, but it certainly wasn’t the hardest thing I’d ever done. I wondered if Solas could win, too - how much stronger was I than other elvhen?

Bull stared down at his hand in shock. He looked up at me in shock. He looked at Varric and then Cole in shock.

“What the hell are you?” he roared, jumping to his feet, very much like a six year-old girl who had just seen a unicorn show up to her birthday party, only much more manly.

“That is the question of the hour,” I said, pushing up with a grin on my face and dusting myself off.

“Shit, I wanna do that again! That was incredible! Can you wrestle? Do you know what we could do with people like you in Tevinter? Is there anyone else like you? Do you know anything about where you’re from? What do you know about the Qun?”

It went on like this for a while, his mind spinning off into a dozen applications for someone of my ability, and suddenly he wanted to know everything about me. He probably had before because of his job, but as if beating him at arm-wrestling had forged some sort of “bro” bond, he was no longer playing at polite and not just asking.

I was glad. A little knocked off-balance at first, but glad.

“Hey, Trouble, you sleeping tonight?” Varric eventually asked.

“Wait wait wait,” Bull said, waving his hands in front of himself. “You don’t _sleep_ either?”

“No, I do,” I said, a little halting with discomfort. “I just. . . haven’t. It’s complicated. I have a chaperone in the Fade, and I haven’t wanted to talk to him the last couple nights. I only need about three hours of sleep, and I feel fine even though I haven’t. Slept, I mean. My body tends to tamp down on anything that will slow me down, though, so I don’t know if tiredness falls under that umbrella.”

“It will hurt if he makes you look,” Cole said. “But if you do, you can let go. You make it better. Let the dead lay. They don't hurt any more.”

I wanted to ask if he had let go of the people he’d killed when he was to the world. But he still didn’t remember any of that.

“I killed some people on the way here,” I explained soberly to Bull. “A few days ago. I’m sure they weren’t my first, logically, but they’re the first I remember. I’ve been taking time as I could to deal with it, and I haven’t held back in fights since, just. . . I don’t know, something about it got stuck in my throat.”

Bull's face turned serious. “The Qunari are pretty fatalistic about life and death. They teach us about it if we get chosen for a role under the Qun that’s probably going to involve a lot of killing. But you already know about that, right?”

“Some of it,” I said with a shrug, completely ignoring what may or may not have been a test. “I know how you’re conceived, born, raised, the basic tenets you live by, the structure of your society, what some of the roles within it do.”

Cole muttered something I didn’t understand, and then vanished.

Bull couldn’t help it: “What’s with the kid? He’s kind of. . . .”

“Cole is a spirit of compassion,” I said.

Varric froze, and Bull growled incredulously, “You bound a demon?”

“Did I say demon?” I replied a little too peevishly. “He isn’t a demon any more than I’m a nematode.” Much more gently, I added, “He’s not like Anders, Varric. Don’t worry.”

“You sure about that?” He asked uneasily.

“Positive. Zero percent like Anders. Completely different situation.”

“Who’s Anders? Another creepy friend of yours?”

“You heard about the Chantry in Kirkwall getting blown up?” Varric asked. “That was Anders.” His distaste was clear.

“Shit. You know that guy?”

“No. I haven’t seen him in four years. And I’m not sure anybody ever knew Anders. I’m not sure there _was_ an Anders by the time I met him.” Varric picked up a stick from the ground nearby and began breaking pieces off, absently throwing them into the fire.

We were all quiet. I looked down at my hands. “Was it hard the first time? For either of you, when you killed someone?”

“Sure,” Bull said. “But it’s like anything else in life. You build up callouses over time. People say ‘it gets easier’ too much, but in this case, it really will. The volume of feeling will go down. It’s never going to be just plain easy, but that doesn't mean every time will feel like the first.”

It was oddly gratifying hearing this from someone who was so good at dealing out death. Who did it so often and with such seeming readiness. But then Bull, like everyone else, wasn’t what he first appeared to be.

“Just don’t try to push it down,” he went on. He leaned back onto an elbow and turned his head to the side to look at me, propping it on one of his horns. “Deal with it, or it’ll hollow a piece of you out that you probably don’t want to lose. Some people pray, some people have rituals to honor the dead, some people drink or have sex or get into fights. Some people do more than one. You just find what works for you.”

“Is that what you were doing when you ran off?” Varric asked me. “After it happened, I mean.”

I raised my brows at him a little. “What makes you think that?”

He shrugged. “You’re the thoughtful sort--”

“How do you figure?” I interrupted incredulously. “All I do is run my mouth, boss people around, pester everyone for tutorials, and wander aimlessly.”

“No you don’t,” he said with a chuckle. “Well, ok, you do get in extra miles, and you’re not afraid to take charge. The tutorials thing? Nobody blames you for that, Trouble, and you’re not a pest about it. Most of the time. But running your mouth? Nah. You ramble when you’re nervous, sure. You tell people when you’re pissed at them, you speak up when you have something to say, but you sure as shit don’t ‘run your mouth.’ Plus, half of what comes out of it is a study on the profound nature of life and the universe,” he said in an exaggerated tone. “You don’t get that way unless you do a lot of thinking, and watching, and listening. I would know.”

I snorted, and he had the grace to look mildly offended before he went on pointedly. “I _was_ going to say how nice you were - to _most_ people - but now I think I’ll skip that part. Anyway, the Qunari is right. However you deal with shit - yelling at elven apostates, hitting elven apostates, strangling elvhen apostates--”

“Varric!”

He went on like I hadn’t interrupted. “Writing, that weird sword dancing contortionist shit you do, wandering off into the woods for hours at a time and leaving everyone to wonder if you’ve been eaten by a bear. . . . Just make sure you deal with it. I hear it helps when it’s for the right reason. Seems plausible, buuut I have my doubts. The first is always brutal, no matter who you are. Unless you’re a psychopath.”

“Contortionist shit?” Bull asked.

“Like a damn circus performer. She’s not shy about it, either.”

“Well it’s not like I can retire to my private room for the evening and do it where it won’t scandalize anyone.”

“Don’t worry on my count, Boss,” Bull half-purred jocularly.

“So accommodating, this one,” I said.

“I like to be helpful.”

“Yeah speaking of, I have a request. But not for tonight. Just help me remember it tomorrow. Tonight, you two need to go to bed. Varric, I need to talk to Leliana, so you take third watch. The Iron Bull, don’t worry, I’ll be sure to protect you from the scary, socially awkward teenage boy while you sleep.”

“Sure, Trouble.”

“You’re hilarious,” Bull said flatly.

“With less than two days speaking the local language, I can already say I’ve been called worse.”

Cole materialized next to me and held out a blade and a large stick.

“For your hands,” he said.

I beamed up at him, chest threatening to overflow.

“Two days?” Bull asked. “I thought--”

“Goodnight, vicious, terrifying Qunari friend,” I cut pointedly over top him as I cut into the stick and started whittling aimlessly.

As soon as both men were in their tents, I willed the fire out.

“Boss?” Bull asked, wary.

“Yeah, sorry The Iron Bull, that was me,” I said. “Easier to see without the fire. Makes us less visible, too. It’s always out when I’m on watch. Forgot to mention it.”

“No problem. But didn’t you say you were meeting someone later?”

“Yeah. In the Fade.”

“In the. . . .” He made a disgruntled noise. “I’m going to sleep.”

I chuckled to myself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn’t going to apply any time soon, but please do note the archive warnings. I don’t want anyone traumatized by anything later on. >_>
> 
> Nua’s character description is intentionally vague and lacking. It’s so she can look like whatever the hell you want her to. Asian (Hi, Jakora! :D <3), Middle Eastern, African, European, Samoan, Oompa Loompa, idc. Go crazy with it. If I give a detail and it doesn’t fit with your head picture, chuck it.
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> 5/9/18: Added reference in Solas' POV to a second meeting between him and Nua in the past


	16. Interference

I held Fen’harel’s forest in my mind as I drifted off. He was waiting for me when I woke to the Fade, sitting and facing me, the tip of his tail twitching now and again as if he were a giant cat.

[Da’lan.] He was like a parent and a friend and a lover, all greeting someone they hadn’t seen in years. His voice was so _warm._

I looked down. “. . .I killed someone,” I whispered. “Seventeen of them, all at once. Varric and Cassandra were going to die, I only had an instant to act, and I just. . . did.

“I know I have before. And I’ve done it again since. But I don’t _remember_ and I couldn’t. . . I didn’t want to. . . . I needed time,” I sighed. “I don’t know why. You’re the only one who knows this part of me, and coming here. . . . Everything is just happening so fast. It was fine when it was ideas and walking around and helping and telling people where to cram it. The blood made it real.” I huffed a laugh. “And there wasn’t even any blood.”

[You had done it many times before you came to me. Something inside of you would take control when you fought. You were ferocity and grace embodied. When you came back to yourself once it was finished, you set it all aside.]

“How?”

[I cannot pretend to know. Everyone deals with it differently. But there is no one who it does not affect.]

“So I hear.” I paused, shifted on my feet. “Fen’harel. . . why did you lie about Solas?”

[Lie?]

The answer took me right back to my argument with Solas the day before. Perhaps they were comparing notes. Perhaps they had already met to discuss what had happened.

“You’re asking _which_ lie I’m referring to, then?” I snapped. I shook my head in disbelief. Why I thought my friend, my “friend” would tell me the truth when confronted. . . .

“Forget it,” I said. “I won’t get answers from you anyway. I have people I need to see tonight, can you make yourself a normal size?

[Nua--]

“No,” I said harshly. “I am so fucking _sick_ of being lied to, and it doesn’t matter if I can piece together why, I guess I just wanted one person, _one fucking person_ who knew what I did and wouldn’t lie through their teeth every time they opened their mouth. Christ, even _I’m_ lying to me.” I shook my head. “I’m glad I didn’t come here.”

With a flash of inspiration, I used my anger as an excuse to close myself off from him, as if retreating to another room.

“Is there a way to quickly travel great distances?” I asked, frustration and anger obvious in my voice.

[Perhaps.]

I shot him an exasperated and warning look.

He shook his head and stood to pace nearer to me. [What I mean is, yes, there is, but I do not know if it will work, not even with your connection to the Fade.]

“. . .Deets, please,” I urged, annoyed, when he didn’t speak.

He looked at me blankly and I rolled my eyes. “Details, Fen’harel. Please explain what you mean.”

He was circling around me so close that the coarse tips of his fur tickled against the bare parts of my skin. It was testing. I allowed it, but only just.

[It is a modified Fade Step. Have you used the ability?] His voice was subdued, but aloof. I hated it.

“Not that I know of.”

He nodded without nodding, then suddenly he was several yards away.

[It will look like that in the waking world. Do you need to see it again?]

I soaked the magic in and, in answer, stepped to follow him, appearing feet from his face. [Guess not,] I answered, glib.

He didn’t take the bait. Stupid goddamned wolf.

[Exactly like that, but will yourself further. I would recommend trying it over slowly increasing distances, and only where you can see your destination. Since the Fade travels with you and is not present in the world overall, your results may be unpredictable. It may not work at all.]

I sniffed and nodded, and, not wanting to give him an opening, moved us to the pocket of the Fade occupied by Leliana’s dreaming mind. I roused her gently and told her we’d be collecting Cassandra, too.

“But what is that?” She asked, looking to Fen’harel who, despite my anger, was glued to my side, “normal”-sized. Though his eyes remained blue, they had darkened considerably and his fur had returned to black.

“The demon-repellent chaperone I mentioned. You can call him Fen,” I said with a snide note. He would hate it.

I felt a prick of annoyance from him and gave him one right back. In answer, the asshole was _amused._ I practically seethed, but reeled my ara’lin back in tight to deny him the satisfaction of knowing it.

[You always did have a temper,] he allowed with cool detachment.

“And were you always a lying shit?” I hissed back.

[Yes.]

“Are you talking to the. . . Fen?” Leliana asked uncertainly.

“We’ve had a bit of a spat, you’ll have to excuse me.”

To my surprise, she smiled. “You seem familiar with him. You said he knows you - you are friends? I would be glad to hear that you are not so alone.”

A pang, well-subdued, went through me - and another went through him. For a moment, my temper sputtered like fire doused with too much water.

“That's under debate at the moment. I only have a few hours here tonight, so let’s go and get Cassandra.”

“Cullen wishes to join us, too,” she said.

I looked at her, surprised. “Really? I figured he would have been relieved not to be involved.”

“He is not comfortable with the idea, but though he can be quite rigid, he sometimes manages to be open-minded.” Fen’harel scoffed silently. “Truthfully,” she said as if amused and conspiratorial, “I think he is curious. About you as well.”

I was taken aback, and I let it show on my face. Until I shot a glare down to Fen’harel for the silent, low growl.

“If you’re not going to behave, put it away,” I hissed quietly at him. “You’re as bad as Solas.”

That time he growled at _me._ Out loud.

“Oh, cram it,” I snapped and took a step away from him.

Leliana arched a brow, hands clasped behind her back.

“Sorry. Spat, like I said.”

“Does he - do you not have a human form, Fen?”

He looked at her disdainfully.

“Probably,” I answered for him. “But he’s the secretive sort. He hasn’t even shown me.”

He felt a small bit of remorse at that, at least.

Leliana eyed him. She cast a glance at me and she was trying to tell me something, but I could only guess that it was some sort of advisory for caution. More visibly, she gave a lithe shrug. “As I was saying, Cullen is the only one of us who has not heard you speak or express yourself. And with all you had to say the last time we met like this, can you blame him?”

I smiled despite myself, brows drawn a little together. “I guess not. I’ll try to make it easy on him.” I paused, then added, “You seem well tonight.”

“I have not been at my best since the Conclave, but I am recovering, thank you. What you said. . .” she cast a glance at Fen’harel. “Can we speak freely?”

I gave a half shrug. “Might as well. No life-altering secrets, though. To be safe.”

Another jab of annoyance, and this time I growled, too quiet for Leliana to hear.

She nodded. “I cannot pretend to understand all of what you told me the last time we spoke, or to believe it. But I am grateful for the guidance.” She said this with the ease of speaking to someone who had an inherent _right_ to give her guidance. It shot my hopes of seeming like a person to her all through with buckshot. “If nothing else, it has given me something to occupy my thoughts. Reports of your progress have also helped.”

I nodded. “I’m hoping to be done in the Hinterlands within three or four days. We talked to Giselle today, and the meet will be in less than a month.”

“Cassandra sent me a report this evening. The timing makes sense, but it is hardly convenient. Chancellor Roderick has already returned to Haven,” she said darkly.

“Your ravens are incredible,” I said with a huffed laugh. “Good segue though, Roderick is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about. Before we do, has anything noteworthy happened with Agent Butler yet?”

“Butler?” She asked surprised. “No, he has been on an assignment for some time. Why, is he in trouble?”

I shook my head. “Just, if something happens with him, talk to me before you decide what to do. Please. It’s important.”

“. . .As you wish, Prophet.”

I hid a cringe. “Let’s go collect our friends, shall we?”

“Of course.”

Cassandra was in a frilly dress that looked like it should belong to a six year-old girl. An older, puffed-up nobleman with a Nevarran accent sat at the head of a massive dining table. He wore a vase, complete with flowers, upside down on his head, and had what looked like an undead mabari sitting in his lap as if it was no bigger than a kitten. The man was lecturing her on her declining marriageability as he pet the dog’s head. And he kept saying something about pheasants. It sounded very urgent.

When I had given Cassandra better clothes and her mortification had started to subside, we went to Cullen who, of course, was having a nightmare.

I cursed and waved a hand. The dream vanished like fog.

“That is remarkable,” Cassandra said in wonder.

Leliana, shrewd as ever, asked, “Have you perhaps been keeping an eye on the Commander? He mentioned he has been sleeping unusually well, and you showed interest in preserving his good dream last time we were met like this.”

I looked a little guiltily from her to Cassandra. I could “feel” Fen’harel roll his eyes in disdain.

“Jesus you _are_ as bad as Solas,” I accused under my breath, looking down at him. Then, to the women, said, “I. . . might have been keeping an eye on him. I don’t watch his dreams or anything,” I hurried to say, “I’ve just sort of been staying nearby, and when he has a nightmare, I find out and I make it stop.” My voice was perhaps more sheepish by the end than I would have liked. “ Sleep is important," I added in a small voice. "Is it a terrible invasion of privacy? Is it creepy?”

Leliana looked deeply amused. “I won’t say anything if Cassandra doesn’t. He has been in a much better mood, and those terrible bags under his eyes have even started to look a little better. His men feared his temper less toward the end of last week, too. He has been more tired the last two days, however.”

"Ah, yeah, I. . . I didn't sleep the last two nights. Sorry about that."

She raised her brows.

Cassandra looked from Cullen, around whom a new dream was already coalescing, to me. “You said you do not watch his dreams. How do you know when there is a nightmare?”

“I just sort of ask it to tell me if he’s having one. When he is, I step in. If it’s especially bad, sometimes I put him somewhere familiar or comforting, but usually I just leave him be.”

“. . . I do not see a problem with it, then. We may wish to keep it between us, however. I doubt the Commander would appreciate the interference.”

“I had the same feeling,” I said.

I looked to the man in question and remembered telling Leliana I would try to make this easy on him. A picture came to mind, and immediately we were in a green, open field in the dead of night, tiny lights flashing all around us, so dense it seemed like we stood in a field of stars.

“What is this?” Leliana asked in wonder.

“Do you not have them here?” I asked. “Little flashing bugs? We called them fireflies or lightning bugs. They would come out in numbers like this during the summer in some places. It’s their mating call. The light, I mean.”

“No,” Cassandra said, just as struck as Leliana. Even Fen’harel was appreciative. “There are small cave-dwelling creatures and fungi that glow, but nothing like this.” God help me, the woman had wonder in her eyes. I thought it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. “Are you remembering, then?”

“No,” I said, pensive. “Nothing comes back when I ask for it, but contextually it’s always there when something else calls it up. I think I would be able to answer just about any question about my past even though I don’t _remember_ any of it. General things, anyway. I’ve been getting the impression I shouldn’t want to remember more than that.”

That earned me looks from all three, but I just turned to Cullen and smoothed an absent hand over the cloth at my stomach nervously before calling him, putting a will behind the word to not just get his attention, but to help him wake up.

“Maker,” he breathed when he took in our surroundings. “Am I still dreaming?”

“No,” I said with a warm smile. “Leliana told me you wanted to be here when we talked tonight. I thought you might appreciate a good view your first time. The raw fade is kind of. . . weird. This is something from my world. I’m guessing it’s a memory, but I couldn’t say for certain.”

“You can manipulate the Fade?”

“Apparently,” I said with half a shrug. “Fen,” I made the word into a slight jab, “here has been teaching me.”

“And this is your. . .friend? The one you mentioned?” Cullen asked dubiously, looking at Fen’harel.

A silent growl rumbled through him. I shot him a warning look, which he ignored, and just said “Yes.”

“So. . . where are we, exactly?” Cullen asked. “What are these lights?”

“Little bugs,” Leliana said with a laugh. Crickets sang around us. “The Prophet--” Cassandra’s eyes darted to my face, “said this is how they attract mates. Like birdsong, or colorful flowers.”

I gave them a moment to appreciate the view before speaking. I wasn’t sure how much time I had left. Fen’harel had told me that time in the Fade is a fluid thing, but that as a Dreamer, I could will it to more or less follow time as I was used to it. I typically gave myself a watch or pocket-sized clock to track the time, but I had forgotten tonight.

“Speaking of creatures trying to advertise their alleged superiority, I want to talk about Roderick.”

“Leliana told you he’s back, I take it?” Cullen asked drily.

I hummed a half-amused agreement. “I knew he would be, I just wasn’t sure when. He’s to die in a few months, but so are a lot of other people, and if I can stop it, I’m going to. Sadly, that will mean our good Chancellor may have a great many years to continue harassing us needlessly.”

That sobered everyone immediately.

“I can’t give you a lot of details, and like too many other things, it’s still very much up in the air, but I wanted to find out how much you in particular, Leliana, know about subversive psychology.”

“Only a little. It has not been my area of expertise,” she said. “I can infiltrate, spy, intimidate, and extract information. I know my way around the Game, which involves very little but toying with other people in secret, but you are talking about affecting the way someone thinks, are you not?”

I nodded. “In the right hands, it can be useful.”

[Or you can end up with another Qunari society,] Fen’harel said, and everyone obviously heard him this time.

“The wolf. . . speaks?” Cassandra asked.

“Nothing is what it seems in the Fade,” Cullen said darkly. "I would wager that's no wolf."

“True enough,” I said, “but this nothing happens to be what keeps me from getting swallowed alive by a monstrous horde of demons. So all things in perspective, maybe?” Fen felt a vicious stab of satisfaction at my "defending" him. He was unusually expressive tonight, and I wondered if it was because of our spat or because we had company, or something else I couldn’t think to guess at.

“He’s spent every night training me. You know, helping me not die in the real world, too. He’s a person just like you or I.” Fen scoffed. “This is just his preferred--” A dizzying lance went through my forehead and Fen’harel swelled in size, stepping between me and the others to brace me as I fell forward. A shiver ran over the whole of me.

“Prophet?” Cullen asked, concerned. I looked up to find he had a hand on my arm, and that Fen’harel - whose head was out of Cullen’s line of sight - had the tips of his teeth bared.

[Do not touch her, templar,] he said, his voice warning and quiet.

Cullen’s grip on me tightened and he finally looked down and saw Fen’harel’s expression.

“Prophet. . . .” Cullen began, his tone very much ‘move toward me slowly.’

I Fade Stepped back several feet away from both of them to diffuse the situation, though it nearly had me stumbling again.

“Nua is fine,” I said sharply. “Cullen is a considerate gentleman and Fen is protective. Misunderstanding fixed, everyone back to their corners, please. I’m fine, really.” ‘I think.’ “I’ve found some sort of mental block. That happens when I come up too hard against it. Whatever triggered it gets wiped away.”

Cullen and Fen’harel were still eyeing each other. The barest wisps of black were easing off of his fur near the ground. Cullen's eyes honed in on it like a laser, and I saw a minuscule twitch in his sword hand.

 _”Enough,”_ I yelled, letting my voice vibrate as if in a cathedral. “I am on the clock here, and I don’t know when I’ll be able to talk to all of you like this again. Please, calm the hell down and step away so I can talk. This is _important."_

Everyone was tensed. I sighed and wiped away the scene I had created so we stood in the raw Fade, jade and fuzzy and unreal. That was jarring enough to get everyone's attention. I walked forward and gestured for Fen’harel, then sat down and leaned into his side. We were both tense; it soothed him and, annoyingly, it soothed me, too.

Cullen's eyes were still on Fen'harel. "Can't we simply tell you what you were talking about when it happened? Help you piece it together, perhaps?"

"Only if you want me to experience more lances of agonizing pain," I replied, casual and dry. "That's obviously not my first choice."

Fen'harel rumbled silently and tensed.

“Since I don’t know how much time I have left tonight," I went on, changing the subject, "there’s something more important than Roderick: the meeting in Val Royeaux. Something bad is going to happen there. The barest details are this: people should be planted in the city who can blend in so they can be part of the crowd that day. The Chargers should be good for this, maybe a few soldiers too, but only ones who can act.

“On a signal, they need to start herding people out of the square and behind the gates as surreptitiously as possible. There will be a fight, and it’s going to be a bad one. That was why I wanted as many bodies there as we could get - Cullen, Leliana, that includes you. The Iron Bull met up with us today, so he’ll be there, and if Zevran comes and he’s fit for it, I want him, too. With the uncertain position of the Inquisition, we can hardly march soldiers to a peaceful talk in the seat of the Chantry, but as I said, it will not be an easy fight.”

“What is it?” Cullen asked.

I looked at him, then shifted, and thought for a moment. “. . .Do you believe the future is mutable?” I asked, looking at him.

[. . .You believe you will change something if you say too much,] Fen’harel guessed.

“Err on the side of caution,” I replied wryly.

“. . . As much as I wish to know, so long as we have everything we need to be prepared, it may be best if you did not tell us,” Leliana said.

“But if the future changes, will you not simply see the new course it is to take?” Cassandra asked.

'Simply,' she said. I almost laughed. Almost.

“I know one timeline, Cassandra. One. I know a lot of the possibilities in that timeline, but to be honest, I might have already changed things, if they can be changed. I’m counting on the major points staying where they are, so long as we maneuver properly. There are things I’ll need to talk with all of you about, decisions I’ll want help making. This is your world, after all, and I may not be one of the people who ends up having to live with the consequences of what we do.”

“Then there is no choice,” Cassandra said. “You do not tell us any more than we need to know.”

“Agreed,” Cullen said. “Right now, your foresight is an unheard of advantage. Losing that could be disastrous. Can you tell us anything about these deaths you said were coming?”

I shook my head and glanced at Cassandra. To anyone else, it would look like I was including her in the conversation. But she would know what I was leaving unsaid. “Not yet. Hopefully soon. If nothing else, Val Royeaux will tell us a lot. I only hope this isn’t a mistake,” I said, rubbing my forehead with my fingers.

[Can you tell me?] Fen’harel asked seriously.

I looked at him. “. . .Actually. . . that might not be a bad idea.” I looked back to the others. “He won’t be directly involved, and he has a brilliant strategic mind. If nothing else, I’d feel a lot better not having this on my shoulders alone.”

“And you’re certain you can trust him with that kind of information?” Cullen asked, eyeing him.

Fen’harel only turned to the side and rested his head on my shoulder, closing his eyes as if in pleasure.

I gave him a silent warning and felt only smug amusement in return. A muscle in my jaw twitched.

I looked up at Cullen with a half-apologetic smile. “No. But. . . I think I can. There’s not much he could do with it even if he wanted to, and I'm rarely certain about anything. I seem to take the word literally. . . .Actually, I seem to take a lot of words literally.”

“We will leave it to your judgement,” Cassandra said. “Is there anything else you can tell us before we discuss Roderick?”

“. . .Nnnnoo. There will be a lot more to do after Val Royeaux, so enjoy the ‘slow’ pace while it lasts. Here’s the plan for Roderick, and I figure we can use this to help with public opinion, too. . . .”

 

* * * * *

 

That had been the morning I learned I could force myself awake from the Fade. Angry avoidance could be a strong motivator, apparently. Or perhaps Fen'harel just hadn't wanted me to know how to get away from him should I really want to. 

I was off some way doing a kata as Varric and Bull had breakfast. They were talking in low voices they obviously thought I couldn't hear.

“She can be kind of protective, especially of the kid,” I heard Varric say. “And she's loyal. On the way here. . . well, let's just say you can take it on good authority that if you're with her, she'll protect you. If it helps any, Cole seems like a good enough kid. A little weird, sure, and not so good with people. But I guess now I know why. Honestly sometimes I think she relates to him better than she does to anyone else, like they both speak the same language of ‘weird mystical shit.’ But it seems like she can’t be beat when it comes to judging someone’s character. I mean, she seems to like me ok, and I’m fantastic. Plus she knows all of us inside and out.”

"Say what?"

"Yeah, that's part of her foresight. She knows a lot of people before she meets them, and some of us, mostly the ones she plans on traveling with, she knows like the back of her hand. Well. . . if she knew the back of her hand."

"That doesn't make sense," Bull said uncertainly. "She was  _happy_  when she met me. If she knew everything about me--" he made a considering noise. "I'm not sure I would have expected that kind of reception. I've done some pretty bad shit."

"We all have, Tiny. You know what she said to me once? 'No one who comes to us is clean, Varric. Not to us.' 'Ominous' was an understatement. But if I'm being honest, she's probably right. Everybody has a story. She laid out most of my biggest secrets in one afternoon. In private, mind, but still. But it's easy to forget she's so weird. Because she's so _normal._ She's just this good-natured, sweet, curious kid. Right up until someone pisses her off."

"It's good she keeps the private things private, at least. Still, I'm not sure I know how to deal with someone I've never met knowing every tiny thing about me. Not outside of the Tamassrans, anyway. I mean what is she, seventeen? Nineteen, maybe?"

I scowled as I bent one of my legs up to rest my foot on the back of my head and leaned forward to balance on the toes of the other foot. I hadn't looked seventeen when I'd seen myself in Cullen's dream, and I  _knew_ I was not a teenager.  . . .The same way I knew I wasn't an elf.

"Eahhh, I don't know. But then again, neither does she," he said with an amused puff. There was a pause and the sound of moving or packing. "It's pretty easy to forget who she is, what she can do, what she knows. Of course," he said with another huff of a laugh, "she does weird shit at _least_ three times a day, and that's just when we're traveling. But most of the time it's like she doesn't even _know_ it's weird shit. Like it's just normal. Like she doesn't realize just how batshit crazy it is until after she does it and people start staring at her. Makes it easier to let it go after a while, you know, once it stops making it  _more_ weird. I mean where does she have to be from for. . . ." He trailed off. "Anyway, you watch her and it's like she's just someone from a different country, not some weird. . . whatever from Maker knows where.

"Hell, she argued with the Seeker and her bodyguard for ten minutes because she didn't want to kill a pack of demon-controlled wolves. I had a friend in Kirkwall I think she'd get along great with, her name was Daisy. Didn't have her head on quite as straight as the Prophet, but she'd haul you back if you were about to so much as step on a pretty flower. Anyway my point is, it's easy to forget that she knows everything she does about you. She's simple, but in a good way, do you know what I mean?"

“She doesn't seem that simple to me," Bull said dubiously. "What’s it like, then? Traveling with her, seeing all that shit she can do firsthand. I still can’t get over last night.”

“It's exciting, unbelievable, terrifying and mildly traumatic from time to time. . . . Between you and me, Tiny, I don’t think even the Prophet knows everything she can do. Seems like every time we turn around she's finding some new trick she didn't know she had.”

“Do you believe that? The whole Maker’s Chosen thing. When I first saw your group at the Crossroads, I thought it had to be a load of crap. No offense.”

"None taken. Why?"

"She's too hot to be some holy figure. I mean, in Par Vollen, pretty much everyone's hot. But down here? No. People are either important _or_  hot. You get someone with both, they could take over a country.  

". . .Hm, come to think of it, maybe there's something to that."

“I’m not much of a believer one way or another, and I recognize that she's attractive, in a human kind of way, but she's not really my type, so I guess I never thought about it. Just pegged it as some romantic notion she had going in her favor. I mean, Andraste was supposedly beautiful too, right?"

"They're always beautiful in the stories."

"That's true. I’ve seen Trouble do impossible more times than should _be_ possible, and the days I've been with her are still in the single digits. Wherever she’s from, whatever she can do? Shit, I feel sorry for Sethius.”

“Who?”

“The bastard who blew a hole in the sky. Ancient Tevinter magister darkspawn with god-like powers my left ass cheek. He has no idea what’s coming for him.”

“Wait. _What?_ That asshole is a 'Vint? Of course. Of course it's a fucking 'Vint trying to end the fucking world with some forbidden magical shit. Again." He made a disgusted sound.

I grinned and tuned them out.

 

* * * * *

 

“I don’t like it,” Cullen said.

“That is hardly surprising, Commander.” Leliana replied, clasping her hands gracefully behind her back.

“I mean it. Someone needs to look out for her!"

"Her friend seems to have that in hand."

"No. If she’s from another world, how is it that the creature, who won’t show us his face - won’t even show _her_ while claiming to be an ‘old friend’ - who is nowhere to be found in the real world, supposedly _knows_ her? Whatever force was behind that demon attack could be behind this.”

“I suppose that is possible,” Leliana allowed. “Whoever it is could be trying a new tactic. But if this Fen is with them and the demons wanted to capture her, why would he be helping her to get stronger? It would only make her more difficult to subdue, and there are other ways to gain her trust.”

“Maybe he’s with someone else. We still don’t know who put the mark in her hand, we don’t know how she got here, how she can do the things she can. It’s ironic given that our titular head is prescient, but I feel like we’re stumbling around in the dark.”

“There is the matter of Solas, as well,” Josephine pointed out. “The Prophet insisted he be part of the war counsel, but now wants any knowledge of her journey to this temple kept from him.”

Leliana looked down, thoughtful. “For now, we will just have to hope that she truly can tell us more after her trip.”

“And pray,” Cullen said, dour.

“I have already sent for accommodations for some of our people to arrive in Val Royeaux two days before the meeting of the Clerics,” Josephine said. She was seated straight-backed, with her ever-present scribe tablet on her lap.  “It will allow them time to blend in, as requested. The rest will work their way into the crowd early that day. Have you gotten word back from your friend in the Crows yet, Leliana?”

She frowned. “Yes. He turned down the offer, even after I tripled the price.”

“Did he say why?” Cullen asked, surprised.

“Not really. Only that he was ‘content with his humble life of killing people for money’ and that saving the world once was enough for him. Zevran and I have not been in close contact for many years, but knowing him, it is likely not so simple.” She paused, sighed. “Then again, knowing him, it may be exactly that simple.”

“And reports from Cassandra and Elden?” Cullen asked.

“Continue to be good. Cassandra reports that the size of the mercenary captain must be seen to be believed. Unfortunately, he is Hissrad, a masterful spy among the Ben Hassrath. Apparently the Prophet is willing to vouch for him, and is insistent he join us."

Cullen's lips turned downward.

"My thoughts exactly. Cassandra also says combat is more 'enjoyable' now that they have split up--"

 _"Enjoyable?"_ Cullen parroted.

Leliana nodded, a stately motion. "Demons at rifts stay immobilized until they are slain, and any trying to come through to this side are stopped before they can. She also has yet to see one of the Prophet's barriers break, no matter what kind of abuse it takes. Apparently they simply do not run out."

"Maker, what we could have done with her in Kirkwall."

"It is something I am growing concerned about," Leliana said seriously. "If I did not know how capable she was of protecting herself, I would insist she had guards, both visible and hidden, at all times. When word gets out about what she can do, people will come for her."

"They can try," Cullen said grimly.

"My thoughts, exactly. All the same, I would like to test her more thoroughly. Find out how easily she is distracted, or how she reacts to an ambush, or an attack in a familiar place. It would be useful to know the limits of her enhanced senses, if nothing else."

"I don't know how I feel about that," Cullen hedged.

"I can see the value in it, but there must be some way to test her without leaving so much potential for her to feel. . . well, attacked," Josephine said.

"That is the point, no? She is a smart woman, surely she would see the value in it. Regardless, we can put it off until her return. She is in capable hands until then.

"As I was saying, the Prophet has, perhaps unsurprisingly, shown great foresight in their dealings in the Hinterlands. People continue to receive the help they need, the region grows more safe by the day, and we already have three new agents under our command, not to mention the cult the Prophet found. Cassandra says their help has been invaluable, and they seem fanatic in their loyalty,” she said with a sardonic edge. “Some of Mother Giselle’s people are on their way to Haven with more to follow later, and word of the Inquisition is almost spreading faster than we can follow. There are a great many skeptics, but it seems that skepticism largely dies out once anyone has been in her presence.”

“You can hardly blame them,” Cullen said, almost soft.

“No, indeed we cannot,” Josephine said. “But Solas claimed she has such an affect on people merely because of her connection to the Fade, did he not?” Josephine asked.

Leliana shifted her weight between feet. “Now more than ever, we do not know how much of what Solas says can be trusted. And regardless, does the how truly make the what any less remarkable?”

“. . .I suppose it does not,” Josephine replied eventually, voice thoughtful.

“I’ll try to have Roderick dealt with before her return,” Cullen said. “Lest he find he has the spine to act this time if she chooses to offer herself up again.”

“Do you think she will?” Leliana asked with a small quirk of lips. “I am not so certain.”

“Based on what?”

“The reports, for one thing. Cassandra, and Elden in particular, claim she is remarkably adaptable, aware of the needs of any given situation or audience, and willing to play any part when necessary. Calling Roderick’s bluff was foolish, but if she is able to read a person’s character or knows a good deal about them, perhaps it was not so much foolish as inspired and informed. Frankly, I would look forward to seeing how she dealt with the chancellor a second time. If anyone could put him in his place, it may be her.”

“Ever the optimist, aren’t you?” Cullen asked wryly.

“It is not an easy trait to kill, perhaps.” One corner of her lips quirked.

 

* * * * *

 

“Reality bumping sides, truths, colliding, crashing, crushing, can’t make it sit right, all sideways and too many directions, too much,” Cole mutters. Then, voice clear and certain, “The ones who don’t make sense are the only ones who make sense. The world does not pull itself apart with them. Not as much. Not the loud ones, either, big and like the earth and the sun. So many hurts hiding in the cracks, and so, so many of them, like whiskers on a kitten. . . .”

I was staring up at one of the moons, bright and visible in the daytime sky. I hadn’t noticed him bringing his horse next to mine. “Good afternoon to you, too, Cole. Are you alright?”

“I can’t hear you, can’t make you make sense. But sometimes, you are so loud that I can’t hear anything else.”

“Was I loud just now?” I asked curiously.

“Yes. They hurt you, where you came from before. They all did. He wanted it that way.”

A jolt went up my spine. “Who wanted it that way, Cole?” And which ‘before?’

“The one who sent you there. So much planning, needing, but then he had to hurry, but had to make it right, this will fix everything, _she_ will fix everything, I have made her perfect now.”

A cancer of feeling bloomed up in my chest. “. . .Daern'thal?” But he was locked away with the evanuris.

“. . . He said I shouldn’t say. He said none of us should say. But he still wants to find you. He is looking, waiting. He asked me to bring you, but I said no.”

“And you can’t tell me what his name is?” I asked carefully.

“He said we shouldn’t.”

“Does he talk to you often?”

“No. Only once, when he found out you looked for me. He watches you, even when you think he can't. He didn't want to approach Anders.”

Bile. “How does he do that with--” My eyes darted to the side, gauging the distance between us and the others. “With my friend, the one who watches me at night?”

“. . . I shouldn’t say. Layers, too hard on the outside. Not ready to be peeled, the flesh isn't ready, ripe, not to be eaten and savored.”

I pushed down an exasperated sigh. “Can you tell me _why_ you can’t say? Is he trying to help people? Is that why?”

“All the planning, all the-- yes, the helping, in his own way. It creaks and groans now, stirring it its sleep. It knows things want to change, it fears it. And he is angry and hateful and broken and twisted around, like all of them, but also not. He is not as hot as he once was. But he wants to help, not like them. They just can’t agree on what helping looks like. They all think they’re wrong.”

“. . . Ok,” I finally said, voice quiet, somber. “Thank you for telling me, Cole.”

“But you are upset now.”

“. . .Sometimes when you clean a room, it gets messier before it gets cleaner. People’s feelings can work like that. I’m glad you told me what you did, I’m frustrated that you wouldn’t give me more pieces, and my emotions swelled up to gather around the new information. Like when a place on the body swells to protect an injury from getting worse.”

“I injured you? I didn’t want to do that. I only want to help people.”

“You didn’t hurt me. This isn’t an injury, it’s just something big to take in. People have a hard time taking in big things, changes, which is why it doesn’t all absorb at once. Sometimes people go numb, sometimes anger or fear comes up to protect them. That’s like the swelling. Or like throwing things up in the air, and it seems like chaos until they land and you can start to sort them. My upset right now is like the swelling. But that will go down, and I’ll be glad to know everything you told me. Sometimes people have to get upset before they can feel anything else.”

“Like anger. Like what you told me in the Fade.”

I nodded. “Exactly. People’s feelings work backwards sometimes, when the big things have to come out first. They have to make themselves look scary, like an animal puffing up its fur.”

“But why are people afraid of the truth? It makes it better.”

“That’s. . . a matter of perspective. And a very big question.”

“Does everyone work that way? Hurting to not hurt?”

“I think so. But I don’t think most people recognize it like I do. They get lost in the feelings, instead of standing back and watching them. They think they _are_ the feelings, and they forget that there’s anything outside of them. When people are uncomfortable, they want to get away from the feeling, so they do all kinds of things to help themselves, but often they just hurt more. Burying things, drowning them out, denying them or pretending they aren’t there. Stuff like that.”

“. . .How do you know all of this? You’re like a spirit, watching, feeling, knowing, a mirror but not.”

"I just like paying attention. 'If you want to understand the human heart, you must look up at it from the bottom.'"

My brow wrinkled. Where had I heard that? And why did it hurt to remember it?

“It isn’t lost,” Cole said quietly. “He covered it to protect his plan. And so you wouldn’t hurt as much. He doesn’t think you’re a person, but he doesn’t hate you. He thinks you're precious, a gem in a world of coal.”

I sighed. “Thank you, Cole.”

Later, when Bull had traded places with Cole, he said quietly, “You know that kid’s creepy, right?”

I snorted. “You should talk.”

“I’m _scary,_ not creepy. There’s a difference.”

“Put you in a dark room with tall shadows, have you tower over someone, ask them if you’re creepy or not.”

“Scary.”

“Ok well if Cole’s creepy, then so am I.”

“Nah,” he said, blithe and dismissive.

“How do you figure?”

“Maybe you know the same kind of weird shit he does. Maybe you can read minds or whatever. Wait, can you? Read minds?”

“Nope,” I said absently, eyes unfocused. "Well, not that I know of."

He grunted. “Good enough for now. Just tell me if that changes, ok?"

I smiled to myself.

"Anyway, the difference is _you_ have a filter. And the ability to use basic grammar to communicate.”

I smirked.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. Just had a thought.”

Bull's voice, saying, ‘You might be a weird, squirrelly kid, but you’re _my_ weird, squirrelly kid.’

If only we could let the world be as simple as it was in Cole’s head.

“. . . Ok, so maybe you can be a little creepy. Hmm, ‘troubling’ might be a better word.”

Varric guffawed behind us.

“I’m spitting in your dinner,” I called back.

No you’re not,” he answered. “You’re all talk.”

“. . . What’s a _’dillhole?’”_ Cole asked me. “I know all the other words.”

I put my face in my hand.

 

* * * * *

 

“Peace,” the elf panted when we’d put down the last of the demons attacking her. “I am no danger to you. My name is--”

I Fade Stepped forward a dozen yards to take the lead of the conversation. “Mihris. Yes, we know.”

“Have we met?” She asked in confusion.

“Nope. You can leave now, though. We’ve got this covered, thanks. Safe travels and all that.”

“Excuse me? I am here on an important mission. I believe there is an artifact in the ruins up ahead that--”

“Measures the Veil. Yeah. There’s also some veilfire, an ancient elven recipe for a rune, and a pretty nifty amulet. Like I said, we’ve got this. Have a nice day.”

“Who do you think you are?” She barked, appalled and insulted. “I am First of clan Virnehn! Not that you would know anything about such honor, or the value of the things inside those ruins. You’re obviously well-integrated with the shemlen, like the rest of your kind.”

I bit back a cruel retort: ‘Can you be the First of a dead clan?’ Instead, I only narrowed my eyes and replied pointedly, “Goodbye, Mihris. It was nice to meet you.” I turned and headed up the path to the entrance of the ruins with an incredulous shake of my head.

“You, flat-ear,” she called sharply, all good humor gone. “You need focused magical energy to get past the blockage at the entrance of the ruins. You have no mage with you. You need my help. Perhaps you can put aside the chip on your shoulder and your disrespectful attitude for a moment so we can work together. I would not ask, but I cannot handle all the demons myself.” Even the 'humility' at the end was snide.

I stopped. Waited a moment. Turned around slowly.

“Trouble--” Varric cautioned, recognizing a rising storm front.

I held a hand out to him and looked cold frost at Mihris. “You see,” I said with a falsely bright chuckle, “this is exactly why I wanted to avoid you. You’re a bigot. An ignorant fucking bigot.”

Bull grunted quietly behind me and leaned in toward Varric. It must have been a comical sight. “Definitely just a sweet kid,” he murmured.

“I told you not to piss her off,” he said back, near-silent.

“I beg your pardon!” Mihris bleated at me.

“Not granted, Mihris. I get that I wasn’t exactly sugar and sunshine to you, but were racial slurs really a proportionate response? You call yourself a First, but you can’t recognize another mage if they don’t have a staff strapped to their back? I could cast circles around you with my eyes closed. Do you think your Keeper would be proud of you? Or anyone in your clan? Did they die so you could so poorly represent them, so you could dishonor them?”

Bull smelled of shock.

Mihris’s eyes widened. She opened her mouth to speak, face turning red, but I cut her off.

“You fucking dalish - _as a whole,”_ I specified carefully, “are no different than the humans you hate. You’re every bit as superior and even more arrogant, and you think you’re as entitled to it all as they do. There are just as few among you who are truly good people as there are among any other population, but like the ‘shems,’ you think yourself better because of your blood and where it comes from.

“They look at an elf, call it 'knife-ear,' and think it inferior because it isn't like them. You? An elf _who you know exactly nothing about_ is inferior to you because she was born in the wrong place, hasn’t lived in aravels and forests and fields, and hasn’t had a needle stuck into her face repeatedly as a misguided representation of ignorant faith and ill-informed beliefs! Which, by the way, is a really poor long-term plan if you really believe that your Creators won’t return until every elf, _including the flat-ears,_ returns to their worship.

“No,” I said, cutting myself off. “No, I apologize, I’m being unfair. The elves and the dalish have done the best they could with what they had. Your intentions were good, yes you do have a right to your anger, and there is a nobility to your people deep down that few can match. And none of that gives you the excuse to be a shit,” I bit out.

Mihris had gone wide-eyed. “Creators. . . you’re her, aren’t you?”

“I’m _a_ her, yes. What tipped you off? Was it the breasts? They keep giving me away,” I said, scathing.

“Hahren,” she breathed in wonder.

My face contorted to suspicious confusion. “I’m no one’s hahren, Mihris. Now kindly tell me what the hell I have missed in the last fifteen seconds that has you looking at me like I’m the second coming.”

“You’re the Prophet. The Prophet of the Creators.”

I stared dumbly at her. I looked back at Bull, then Varric, both of whom seemed as clueless as I was. “I’m what now?” I asked her.

“Lord Dirthamen appeared to me in a dream not two weeks past. He said the Creators' Prophet had come, their true Daughter, and that She would restore the People.” She spoke with breathless and wide-eyed wonder.

I stared, this time with my mouth open.

“Lord Dirthamen said that the shemlen call you their prophet,” she said, scathing, “and that you have a mark that glows near the Rifts in your right hand.” She looked down at my gloved palm, eyes alive and intense. “You can close them and save the world. He said that is how I would know you. That you were of the People, the Daughter of Vengeance and Justice. One of the original elves,” she breathed, awe pouring off her like falling vapors. “I was on my way to Haven to offer myself to your cause when I learned of the artifact in these ruins.”

“. . . Well that’s new,” Varric said uneasily.

I looked at Mihris. Blinked. Opened my mouth to speak, then closed it. I looked to Bull and Varric again. They were both still as clueless as I was.

I put my face in my hand. _“What the actual fuck,”_ I muttered to myself in English.

“. . .Weren’t the ancient elves supposed to be immortal?” Bull asked.

“Yes, The Iron Bull,” I said. “Yes they were. Cole?” I called. He had disappeared, and didn’t reappear now. I could really have used him to help me figure out what was going on. She wasn’t lying - or at least she didn’t think she was, but there was no way Dirthamen, the _real_ Dirthamen, had appeared to her in the Fade. Fen’harel’s trap was eternal. And I felt certain that Dirthamen had risen and fallen with the First Blight. Or at least, part of him had. My chest felt like a spring that was being wound too tight.

“So let me get this straight,” I said, putting my hands on my waist and leaning my weight on one foot. My fingers dug into my sides, and not for the first time, I cursed my muted pain response. As instinctual as magic had been, so was the knowledge ‘pain brings focus.’

“You had a _dream,"_ I said, "and now you think I’m an ancient, immortal elf who’s here to restore the elven people? Or is it just the dalish? And this is all despite the fact that I’m just a filthy flat-ear?”

A mortified blush climbed her cheeks. “I was wrong, Hahren.” One of my eyes twitched. The spring was wound tighter. “I am so sorry, truly I am, I beg you to forgive me. I spoke in ignorance.

"It was no ordinary dream I had. I am a First, I know the tricks of spirits and demons. This was Lord Dirthamen Himself.”

“And he, what, escaped his prison in the Fade just to give you a dream about me? Rather than freeing his brothers and sisters and coming here to help you themselves, as promised?”

"His prison?"

"Never mind," I said with a wave of my hand and a disgruntled noise.

“I do not pretend to know the will of the Gods, hahren.” A twitch of my jaw, this time. “And He told me I was not the only one He spoke to.”

It felt like gravity tripled. “Excuse me?” I asked slowly.

“He came to us all the same night and said that the People must gather, that they must go to you and offer their aid.”

I paused a beat, then loosed an impressive string of expletives in two different languages.

“To Haven,” I managed when I was finished. “Every dalish elf, let me be clear, _every dalish elf in all of Thedas_ was told to go to Haven not two weeks ago?”

“Yes, Daughter of Mythal. Immediately.”

My eyes slipped closed as they rolled heavenward.

Varric cursed quietly.

“I was under the impression that Haven wasn’t very big,” Bull said.

“Good impression. Because it’s not. Not big enough for tens of thousands of dalish to suddenly show up. Oh my god they’re going to stab people in the face.” Again I loosed a torrent of curses.

“Okay. Ooookay. . . . Okay. So, we have a new problem. That’s alright,” I coached myself, and even I could hear that I didn’t believe it, “problems happen. Surprises. Things catch you off guard. Even when you know everything that’s going to happen. Jesus shit what did I do wrong,” I moaned. I was muttering to myself by the end, too quietly for anyone to hear, except maybe Bull. I ran over the last two weeks and saw nothing that could have caused tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands for all I knew, of dalish to suddenly have a magical dream telling them to swoop down on Haven. We had been doing so well earning people's goodwill, and now we would have to combat the completely reasonable assumption that the elven “prophet” was siding rather aggressively with the dalish.

An odd keening started coming from my throat. I clenched my fist too hard and bit down on one the pad of one of my fingers hard enough to bruise, my eyes squeezed shut as hard as I could make them. I started rocking back and forth in quick, tiny motions, and I took tight, controlled breaths to calm myself, but it wasn’t working.

“The world is starting to come apart,” Cole said, suddenly here again, back with Varric and Bull. “She needs something to hold it together. Blankets and tight spaces, alone and safe in the quiet, the dark, cocoons where it all goes away until it can come back again, but the right way. Order in the static, something to cling to until the storm stops. But it’s too wide here, too bright. She needs something to hold herself together.” He sounded pained, or stressed or urgent, I couldn’t tell which. I was too busy trying to. . . .

To hold myself together.

“Help,” he said quietly. “Please, I can't do it, I can't help.”

“What do we do, kid?” Varric asked. “You said something about blankets? Our bedrolls are back with the horses."

“Arms,” he murmured, “strong and wide, bands of iron, safe from the world like a locked box. Warm chest, hard and sturdy holding tight, tighter until it goes away. Cover her up, block it out, make it make sense again.”

I felt Bull look at Cole and then back to me. I felt like I was vibrating all over, squeezing a nail into the webbing above my thumb. Pain should help, but I couldn’t feel it. I started backing up absently. If I could just get a minute alone--

Bull strode up and lowered himself to his knees at my front. He wrapped his massive arms around me gently, hands splayed and gripping. I jumped at the touch and pulled back, that odd noise coming from me again, and he murmured quietly, “You’re alright, Boss. Just relax. Lean into me, let me support you. There you go.” He tucked my face into the crook of his shoulder, and his over mine, chin holding me to him like his limbs, even one of his horns pressed to the back of my head. "There's nobody here but me and you. I've got you,” he said, a rumble in my ear and chest. "Listen to my breathing, my heartbeat." I made some halting, choked off sound and he held me tighter.

When he was pressing me to him so hard I could practically feel his ribs through the layers of thick, corded muscle, it started to feel like the world wasn’t shaking as much. Form began to return. Physicality. A body. The part of me that could control this came back. The part of me that could prevent it and hold it back came. He pieced me back together by holding me as if I were coming apart.

Mihris tried to say something at some point, but Bull only told her in a stern-calm voice to shut the hell up and to back off. She started to argue. Bull raised his head to look at her, and she went quiet.

My breath found me. My muscles. I remembered tension and how to start to release it. It took long minutes, but eventually, the last piece came back: calm.

I breathed, long and deep and slow. I realized I was gripping Bull back, my hands tight fists around the straps of his shoulder piece. I tipped my head so that only my forehead was resting near the crook of his neck and kept breathing until weight and body and brain all felt anchored again. Then slowly, I pulled back.

My eyes were red like I had been crying, I could feel them. I could feel the tension still in my face. Embarrassment. Shame for that embarrassment. And I knew this had all happened before.

“Thank you,” I whispered as I stepped back. My voice was unsteady. I couldn’t look at him.

“You want to call it a day?” he asked, calm and quiet like we were alone in a small space. There was no judgement in his voice, and he smelled sure and confident. Present and aware. “We can make up the time tomorrow. You can rest, do your sword dancing, be alone, whatever you need.”

“. . .No,” I began through a spurt of breaths that were too quick. I squeezed my eyes shut. “I need to finish what we came here for. I just might not be chatty for the rest of the day.”

“You sure that’s a good idea, Trouble?” Varric said uncertainly.

“You'll be fine. I can still back you up in a fight.”

“That’s not what I meant." I knew it hadn't been. But it had been the safe reply. "We have a long road ahead of us. It’s probably not a good idea to burn yourself out so fast.”

I shook my head. “It’s not the first time that’s happened, I could tell. It’ll be harder for me to know that we’re stopped and losing daylight because of me than it will be to push through, set up camp at the normal time, and deal with it tonight.

I felt Bull and Varric exchange a look.

“If you would allow it, Prophet,” Mihris said with a carefully quiet voice. I clenched my teeth so hard I thought they might shatter. “I have the herbs to make a tea that should help you relax. I’m certain you have better recipes than I, but I don’t know if you’re familiar with modern herbs.”

“No. I just need to get back on my feet. Travel safe, Mihris. Sorry I was a shit.” I turned and started back up the path toward the ruins. It took them a minute, but eventually I heard Varric and Bull fall in behind me.

“Cole?” I said, near-silent. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said simply from the back of the group.

I felt eyes on my back the whole way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are once more geographical impossibilities in this chapter.
> 
> Frankly, I am too lazy to fix them.
> 
> *sips drink*
> 
> Remember that note a couple chapters ago about medieval populations? Even at _.5_ per square mile and taking out places like Par Vollen, lowering the numbers in Tevinter. . . that's a fuckton of dalish.
> 
> I rounded way, _waaaaaay_ down. Maybe it would be more accurate to say hundreds of thousands. I don't know. I don't like deciding things sometimes.
> 
> That quote about understanding the human heart. I probably butchered it. It's from [_Novice to Master: An Ongoing Lesson in the Extent of My Own Stupidity,_](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0861713931/ref=crt_ewc_img_huc_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A9FKNLPQM17S0) which is a great book, but I couldn't find the quote online, and my copy is either lost in a moving box, or I gave it away at some point.
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> 7/2/17: Fluffy now changes back to his black-haired, blue-eyed form for the meeting with the advisers.  
> 7/3/17: She now knows how to force herself awake


	17. Foregone Conclusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Style change!

“I killed some darkspawn once. They weren’t that ugly, though. And I’ve still never gotten to see an ogre. Ass deep in 'Vints and Tal-Vashoth for years, you’d think the universe could throw just one ogre my way.”

“Yeah I’m not sure what genius figured a few planks of lumber would be enough to seal those holes they were coming through,” I say with a snort. “But uh. . . you _do_ know where ogres come from, right?”

“Uuunderground?”

“Have ya heard of broodmothers, The Iron Bull? How they're species-specific?”

“. . .That sounds like something I don’t want to know.”

“Good call, Tiny,” Varric says seriously. His good humor has diminished since we found the first crates of red lyrium.

It only gets worse from there. We go deeper and start finding nodes the dwarves haven’t even harvested from yet. We destroy them, but I’m not convinced it really does anything except maybe slow their growth. Which is a massive accomplishment, I admit. They have a dark “song” about them. It is ancient and malicious, aggressive and furious. It does not break apart with the crystals.

It leaves me feeling uneasy. The feeling roots in my gut and I can't shake it, like intuition or a bad memory.

It takes Varric hours to put his humorous mask back in place after we finish in the mines and take in the sheer volume of red lyrium there. I think part of him had hoped that the temple in Haven was a one-off, that there couldn’t be that much of it, not really.

I wish he had been right. I wish this was the last of it, too. I don't tell him it isn't, and he doesn't ask.

 

* * * * *

 

“I’ve been thinking about why you wanted me and the Seeker to keep your secret, Trouble. Care to shed some light on it?”

“Sure,” I say easily.

We’re strolling away from camp, hunting and foraging for dinner, respectively. Varric already has a collection of roots and fungi, helped along by me. Tonight he has taught me a new edible plant. It's a grass, surprisingly sweet when raw, and apparently the fibers can be used to patch armor in a pinch. Otherwise, I’m just waiting for the return trip so I don’t have to carry a dead animal around longer than necessary.

"If the world at large finds out what I can do when I let loose, I figure it could change something in the timeline. I’m a fan of the horrible, potentially catastrophic immediate future being as predictable as possible.”

“I can’t say I disagree with that.”

“You are magnanimous as always.”

“And ruggedly handsome.”

“Varric, please," I say as if pained. "I'm just trying not to torment myself by how close you are when I know I can't have you." I sigh theatrically.

“So. . . out of curiosity, what exactly _can_ you do when you let loose? Aside from cornering the market on grisly and hideous statuary.”

I look at him levelly.

“. . . I don’t want to know, do I?” He guesses.

I huff a laugh. “Given the way people's minds work, we’d have a hard time convincing anyone I _wasn’t_ some kind of demi-god. People nowadays have no idea what magic can really do, _could_ really do when the world was the way it was supposed to be. When the ancient elves were alive, there was no Veil. The Fade and the physical world were one thing, and elvhen could literally will things into existence. They could alter and shape reality the way a dreamer can in the Fade. And according to Solas and my nighttime friend, I am a mage of no inconsiderable skill living inside a walking pocket of what the world used to be. Savvy?”

He is quiet at first. Then he swears under his breath. “You know, Trouble, the kind answer there would have been, ‘No, Varric. You don’t want to know.’ For the future. Because somehow I doubt this is the last opportunity you're going to have to freak me the hell out.”

I smile a little, but it's a sad thing. “I’m sorry for asking you to keep it a secret,” I say sincerely. "I wouldn't ask you to lie if I didn't think it was really important."

He blows a raspberry. “Believe it or not, that’s the least of the shit I keep locked up in here.” He taps a large, gloved finger to the side of his head. “Well. . . ok maybe not the _least.”_

“Believe it,” I confirm.

Eventually, he poses a wary question. ". . . You're not going to have something follow you back to camp and then snap its neck in front of the fire again, are you?"

I hid my mortification. "I cleaned it up! How was I supposed to know things void their. . . _fluids_  the moment they die?" I muttered something about the smell not being much different than normal under my breath.

"Yeah, that wasn't really the part that gave me nightmares. It was a  _halla._ And you just. . . . Crk!" He pairs the snapping noise with a matching gesture.

"Yes, and Bull ate most of it," I defended. "It was a one-time mistake! One time. I forget about other people's sensibilities when I get too comfortable."

"So what, they do that kind of thing a lot where you're from? Dinner just walks up to them like that? Lets you pet it and then," he runs a thumb over his neck. "Because here, that's not normal."

For a minute, the only sound was grasses and earth under our feet and the creatures of twilight. I could hear a creek a few miles away, the beating wings of a predator high above us, the heartbeat of a colony of rodents far below, the scurry of ants.

"I just asked," I say, my voice unusually small.

"Asked what?"

I sigh quietly. I can already see how well he's going to like this. "For a volunteer."

"Wait. Wait. You  _talk_ to animals? And they just, what, offer themselves up to die?"

I shift uncomfortably. "It's not like that," I protest. "I don't like killing them. I don't like eating meat, or stepping on bugs. I ask permission before I walk on grass or step into water."

"You ask  _permission?_ You do know that plants and water are inanimate objects, right?"

I look at him until the certainty starts to melt from his face.

This isn't the first time I've had a conversation like this, I can tell - my body is priming for a rejection and screaming at me to shut up before it comes.

"What I mean is," I say gently, "I resigned myself to the fact that we need meat. I made peace with it. And since the universe just. . . gives what wants to be given, it's not a shameful thing to me, not something to hide or be squeamish about. I'm not just dominating another life with my will. I honor it, then I do it, and it's done. It becomes no more extreme than changing my shirt. It just requires more respect."

"I've seen you dominate plenty."

"People are different," I say. "They don't listen, so sometimes you have to yell."

"Riiight. Do you, uh, do you ask your clothes for permission, too, then?"

"Not usually," I say petulantly. "I do say hello to them the first time, though. Welcome them to the family, thank them for their presence, so to speak. They're always happier after."

"Happier. So. . . they answer you, then? Your clothes."

"Shut up, Varric."

"Look, I'm just asking," he says with half of a laugh. "I mean shit, kid, it must be one hell of a place you come from if people go around apologizing to dirt when they walk on it or thanking air when they breathe it. How does anyone find the time to get anything done? Do they weep over trees when they get cut down for fire and houses? Hold memorials? Do fish jump into their nets? Andraste's dimpled asscheeks, kid, we gave Daisy a hard time, but she's got nothing on you."

It's a long time before I reply. "I don't think I was normal there, either, Varric," I say quietly.

He goes quiet after that. He smells uncomfortable, sad, protective, and a little ashamed.

 

* * * * *

 

_All requested rumors true._

_For/knowldg. not exaggerated_

_Fluency in Commn. from 0 - 100% reported in two days. Conf. by Tethras._

_Enhanced well above agent: strength, speed, stamina, flex., senses susp., bal, coord., pain tolanc._

_Dim. need for sleep, food, water, voiding, poss. more._

_Phys. combat reported just as imprss. Not verfd. Subject fights at range, shows pref. for defense and support._

_Unprecedented_ _skill with animals, tame and wild._

_Susp. Dreamer._

_Susp. more, curr. unknown._

_Curious, inquisitive. Open mind. Literal. Sensitive to others. Stubborn streak. Loyal, protective. Honest to a fault. Tempered. Often confident, hides insecurities well, second-guesses self. Prefers staying back, leads without hesitation when required. Brash. Instinct over thought. Has a temper, some blk & wht thinking. Suspect variant of asala-taar*. Has expr. int. in Qu., much of thinking already in line with it._

_New companion Cole, claims is spirit of compassion. She's intractable that there's a difference between demons/spirits._

_Future reports to be filtered through spymaster, as suspected. Will send more prior to return to base if can, est. dt. 21 to 25._

_East later tomorrow. Should reach next dead drop in apprx. 1.5 - 2 days._

 

*a condition similar to PTSD

 

* * * * *

 

Varric insists on taking first watch. Neither Bull or I argue - he needs time alone.

With Varric's blessing, I return and collapse the mine. I didn't tell him about the base of the mercenaries who were backing the operation. I travel to it alone and wipe them out. I find it feels good to take them out with my hands, as if I had been missing it. I'm only bothered by the fact that it doesn't bother me. I find callouses on my heart that seem to have come out of nowhere. I take note, but don't question them. They're too useful.

Bull takes watch after Varric, and I leave again to practice the modified Fade Step. I find I can travel as far as I can see, and that elevation becomes irrelevant when I “step” down it. The highest point I run into is only about one hundred feet, but it seems enough to get a good idea.

I realize this is the first time I have been truly alone since I woke in the rubble of the Conclave. I don’t think my time in the field outside camp before we got to the Hinterlands counts.

I Step again and again and again, and though it is considerably more tiring than running, it is many times faster than any horse could run - theoretically. I haven’t seen one run yet, but they don’t look built for speed. A little basic math tells me that what a horse could cover in a day’s walk, I could cover in seconds or hours, depending on my line of sight. If the terrain is rough and winding, so long as whatever boxes it in isn’t too high, I can just climb above the trap and go from there.

My mind wanders on the way back to camp. I don’t want to think about the possibility that Daern’thal or Dirthamen could be loose in the Fade, but with what Cole told me _and_ Mihris’s dream. . . well, there's “coincidence,” and then there's “this is clearly related but calling it coincidence makes me feel better.” In general, I think coincidence is a cop-out, and I am not a fan of pretty lies over hard truths. They waste time, because sooner or later, the truth will slam into your face with all the force and compassion of a cinderblock.

I’m afraid to talk to Fen’harel about it. I’m afraid to talk to him about anything, but I can’t put it off much longer - once I leave for the temple, I plant to stay awake until I’m back in Haven. I can't risk him knowing what I'm doing or the integrity of the whole project will be gone. I’ll be testing the limits of my ability to function without sleep to a dangerous degree, but I plan on getting six hours a night between now and my departure. I hope that will be enough, and I'll have to pay attention for signs of sleep deprivation as I go.

I could take Varric with me for help - he doesn’t dream, so Fen’harel can’t use him to try to find out what I’m doing - but even if it’s possible to Fade Step with him at the pace I want to go, I doubt he would be keen on the idea. And stopping to let him sleep, eat, rest, and use the bushes would mean the journey would take almost twice as long. I feel confident I can watch out for myself. Confident enough, anyway.

Before any of that, I need to run my plan for the envy demon by Fen’harel in case there are ramifications I’m missing.

I’ve almost laughed at the fact that the king of horrible unforeseen consequences will be the one to check my math.

 

* * * * *

 

I’m writing, legs splayed in more than a flat split on either side of me, my top half bent over and resting low on an elbow, while the others are eating. I don’t hate all the extra free time I have when I don’t need to eat, bathe, relieve myself, sleep. . . .

We're camped near a creek, and flying insects are out in force. The smoke from the fire keeps most of them away. Except for one. It has compound eyes and coarse hairs like a fly, but a longer body and, incomprehensibly, smaller wings. They shine like polished gold. I wonder if people harvest them for clothing or decoration or ornament.

The bug has been harassing us in turns, moving from person to person as it tires of a given hand swatting at it. When it comes to me the third time, I lose my patience. My hand shoots out, too fast to see, and I wrap it in a loose fist, my eyes still on my book. I hold it gently while I finish a thought, then rise and lope away to release it.

Camp remains silent when I come back and settle into my writing again, this time resting on my forearms with my body up in the air and bent the wrong way, legs crossed and hanging over my book. There is no wind tonight, so it’s easy - more a stretch than an exercise. Varric has grown used to it, and Bull is adept at pretending he doesn’t care. Either that or he doesn’t care. I’m not sure which.

He eventually breaks the comfortable silence.

“Boss?”

“Hmm?”

“If there’s ever some radical change to the Qun and we start getting married, I’m proposing.”

I smile to myself and say, tone placating and puckish, “I love you too, The Iron Bull.”

“Oh I never said anything about love. You’re _badass._ We’d be great in the sack and our kids would be _unstoppable.”_

I hum a laugh. “Bondage isn’t really my thing, though.”

“How do you know that?”

I open my mouth to answer, then stop. “. . . Fair point.”

"Besides, tying people up is just for fun. If it's not fun, why do it? I don't see you as the kind to like _getting_ tied up, though, but tying someone  _else_ up?" He makes a decidedly R-rated sound in his throat, and despite myself, it sends tingles and warmth. . . places.  ". . . Wait, how did you know  _I_ was into bondage?"

"Told you, Tiny. She knows everything." Varric's voice flattens. "Half the time you can pretend she doesn't. It's soothing. She _usually,_ " he shoots me a covert look, "makes that easy. Sometimes I wish I'd started calling her 'Creepy' instead of 'Trouble.' But with her real name, it's just too perfect to change."

"Real name? Don't tell me--"

"Yup," Varric confirms. "Literally means 'trouble.'"

"Actually a much better translation is 'personification of trouble.' But close enough."

Bull laughs, loud and as big as the rest of him ("Fuck, that's perfect!"), and Varric snorts.

"Who came up with that?" Bull asks, still laughing.

"Her mysterious friend in the Fade. Apparently it was her name before she lost all her memories of this other world of hers. The Seeker said he's a wolf. Or looks like one, anyway."

I know the look Bull gets in his eye (ha), so I answer his earlier question before anyone else can talk. "I know you're into bondage - and so, _so_ many other things - because I have eyes and decent skills of observation. I won't lie and say the insider information doesn't help, but come on. With your personality and your proclivities?

"As you dig down, most people are, by some point, the opposite of what they seem, right?"

He makes a noise of consideration. "To a point, sure."

"Shit, we should form a writing group," Varric says. "You two are insightful."

I smile and keep talking to Bull. "You? You've got your secrets, but the opposite thing? Not nearly as much. So correct me if I'm wrong - I'm totally not, by the way - but the pleasure you get out of sex is the pleasure of the other person. Not _all_ the time, sure, but enough. Or with the right person. And you? I bet your leanings are the same as mine: bottom from the top. You take control because the top is the best place to make sure everything goes well, everyone's needs are met, and because frankly, most people just aren't as good at it as you are. You, my friend, are a humongous, terrifying, magnificent little teddy bear. Of sex. And Death. And spying. I will keep your secret, don't worry. So will Varric."

"Excuse me?" The dwarf asks.

"Don't be stupid, of course you will. He could floss with you. Anyway," I say, looking back to Bull, "I imagine a night - or day, as you prefer - with you is universally the best sex of your partner's. . .s' lives."

He grins broadly. "Care to find out firsthand?"

“Should I give you two some privacy, here, or. . . ?”

“Nah, we're just dicking around,” Bull half-growls in a friendly tone. “I _am_ completely game when you get the urge, though. We _would_ be great in bed. Or on the ground, up against a building, over a really strong chair. . . anywhere, really. You're so tiny, but I wouldn't have to worry about breaking you. And I bet I could take most of what you had to dish out, too. That'd be a treat for you. Besides, this is just how the boss likes it, right, Boss? Blunt. Open. No dicking around with all that delicate Game crap.”

The fact that he said "when" and not "if" does not escape my notice. And that is, in fact, how I like it.

“Fucking Ben-Hassrath,” I mutter to myself with a huffed laugh.

"Ok one: any time," Bull says. "Seriously. And two: you know we could say the same about Fade-sent Prophets, Your Worship," he points out sardonically.

“. . .Leave me alone. I’m writing. Ass.”

 

* * * * *

 

I'm alone when I enter his forest tonight. But then, I’m asleep well ahead of my usual time; likely he’s busy elsewhere. I hardly expect he sits idle much.

Then again, maybe I'm wrong - I feel him behind me mere minutes after I arrive. I say nothing. Neither does he.

I am leaning against a tree, looking up at a bright moon through gaps in the dense canopy. He is standing some six yards back.

[It was a risk, and I could not afford to take it,] he finally says. He sounds tired and sad, maybe even subdued. I hesitate to think I am hearing that right.

I don’t acknowledge that he’s spoken.

[Do you know what I have planned? How Corypheus got the orb, and what it is?]

I nod, so small it’s barely a motion.

[Then you know I would do anything to fix my catastrophic mistake. To restore our people. Our world.] He sighs silently. When he goes on, he sounds weary. Sad. [You were a weapon in our time. A brilliant one. Valiant and courageous and utterly unstoppable. I loved you.] There is so much feeling in those words. [When you disappeared. . . .] He pauses for a long time. [It was a blow to us all.] He doesn't say 'me,' but I hear it all the same. [I searched for you, but could find no trace, here or in the waking world. I felt certain you had died, but there was no evidence, no trail to follow. Eventually I had to let it go, to focus on the war, on trying to ensure that some of us survived.

[I was overjoyed when I found you alive in this time. And suspicious, if I am being honest. I had so many questions.] He says it with half a weak laugh in his voice. [But then I found your memories were gone. Your memories were gone, but your abilities were not, even without the conscious knowledge of your training.

[Nua, you must understand. You could shape the outcome of everything I had planned. Not only were you without memories of elvhenan, of me, of us, but your personality had changed, drastically in some ways. You became an unknown and potentially devastating variable. I wanted nothing more than to be your brother again. Your companion. I wanted to reach out to you, to show you my face. I wanted to do everything within my power to help you. But I could not. Not until I knew if. . . .]

He sighs, and it is such a heavy sound. ‘If you would be an enemy,’ he doesn’t have to say. It sets something bitter and caustic and sour off in me. It’s nothing I haven’t guessed, but hearing it is far worse than abstract knowledge.

[You said I lied about Solas, but I did not. He is no agent of mine; my only lies have been through omission.]

I bite down on anger that sparks against the flint of his sheer arrogance so he can finish. This is the most honest he has probably ever been with me. With this me, at least.

[How much safer was it to have two sets of eyes on you? Two perspectives, two potential influences, until I could see what side of the conflict you would decided to support? Until you decided yourself? Until I knew who you would be?] He is saturated with regret, leaking it, but more than that, the fact that he had to push the words "potential influences" out around disgust at himself wipes away most of the worry that he is just fabricating another lie. Another story.

[I _had to protect the goal._ The future. Our past.

[. . . Nuaelan. . . I want you with me.] He says, and it is emphatic. Honest. [There are so few of us left, and you were among the best. Even when your hands were bloody, you cared about the people. You cared about justice and everything that was right and good. You wanted little more than to help. You were strong. You were not built to be a good person, but over time, it became obvious that you were one regardless.

[The wars changed you. They changed us all, but you held on to something within yourself that I could not manage to. You held me together in the end, when I believed myself lost. Unworthy of anything. And when you vanished. . . .] His mind goes somewhere thousands of years distant, and very dark. His last words are soft. [I can apologize to you if you wish, and I would mean it, truly. But you know as well as I that I would make the same decision if I had it to do over again. In the past, you would have done the same.]

Reflexive denial pours over me like sandpaper, even while I wonder how much of this is manipulation, how much of that manipulation is intentional, and if it really matters to me in the end, no matter the answer. He is still himself.

I set aside what I want to talk about for the moment and chose a topic I will get more use out of. Best to put off the finale, because it will take us down a hard road.

“You said I was a weapon.” My voice is detached and formal. I am not talking to a friend, not now. I cannot be. I am talking to someone who may or may not prove a very dangerous enemy when this is over. “I assume Solas already told you that I went back in time and saw him. He was even more pleasant back then,” I say, dry and flat and unamused. “So I know now that Daern’thal made me.

“If it was just the skill at fighting, I could believe I was made to be a shield. To guard or protect. But with everything else you said I was trained in. . . . Are you going to make me spell it out, or will you save us both the time and tell me who I was made to hurt?”

It is a long time before he answers. These pauses between us, unhurried and natural, are soothing in a way I cannot put words to, even now. It is one of many things that has me increasingly thinking that my trip to the arbor wilds is really just to confirm what I already know.

When Fen'harel does answer, his “voice” is so quiet I almost can’t hear it. [. . .The evanuris.]

I feel my heart thud in my skin. It makes sense, of course. Why else would a Forgotten One, all of whom were apparently defined by their desire to see the lie that was the “gods” torn down, put in as much time and effort and, presumably, expense, as Daern’thal must have to train and groom something like me? Positioning me with Fen’harel had been brilliant. He would have given me an in with the evanuris, and Solas had very obviously been a noble - knowing him, a high-ranking one. It must have been perfect.

“Did you know?” I eventually ask. I would be impressed with how light my voice was if I could care enough. But that would be an unhelpful precedent right now. “When he gave me to you?”

There is disgust at my phrasing. [I suspected,] he says slowly.

“Which means you probably figured it out pretty quick. I heard you, in my dream. You told Daern’thal that you had no interest in helping with one of his ‘experiments.’” I say the word with cool but detached distaste. “So why did you take me?”

He sighs and closes his eyes. Something about this is paining him in the extreme, and I dread learning the reason. [The short answer is that I was curious, and I owed him a favor.]

“And the long answer?”

[Nothing you could not put together on your own. The favor was unrelated, and you know my nature.]

Likely he had handed me off to Solas so often because he couldn’t stand me. I wonder how much of my life I had lived being treated like a non-person, or at best a burden. The feeling isn’t as alien as I think it should be, given how little I remember. The thought alone hurts, in fact.

That was that, then. And now. . . .

“What made you decide that ending this world was the right course of action, in the end?” My voice is meticulously light.

He grows uncomfortable in the extreme, which answers my question. No, not uncomfortable. Afraid. He is afraid. What a disconcerting feeling that from him is.

[You have seen them,] he says quietly. Mournfully. [You walk among them every day.]

I take a moment to make sure I have grasped the correct line of thinking.

“So you want to kill all the weeds because you think the flowers are better,” I say, and it is with the dispassionate tone of a scientist making an observation, marking a note down for later consideration.

[You think differently?]

“I didn’t say that,” I reply calmly. “I just want to make sure I understand your position. I want to know that you made this decision objectively. Not because you’re homesick, not because you can’t face the results of your decision to bring down the sky.”

[I do not claim objectivity in this.]

“That’s good." I nod, and though I mean the words, something in my face goes almost cold. “So it’s personal. Destroying another world, this time on purpose, killing millions. It’s personal.”

He is wary now. On edge. He "knows" this is my answer showing itself, and already the anger is rising in him. [Yes.]

He makes no excuses for himself, at least.

“And what that’s going to do to you?”

[Will be my price to pay.]

I take a loud, deep breath. He waits patiently, and it goes on for a long time.

“Where I come from,” I say, my tone speculative and almost detached, “the planet is dying. We’re killing it. We’ve been poisoning the air, the water, crushing cultures who live in harmony with nature, wiping out species and ecosystems out of greed, the needs of a population too large to sustain, a belief that it is our right to do so, or that we are inherently superior to everything in the natural world, for as long as ‘civilized society’ has existed. Even in its primitive, nascent forms. Our impact is so large that even the weather patterns are changing. I daresay we could give the elvhen a run for their money when it comes to arrogance and a thirst for blood and dominance. Humans on my world are a virus. They consume resources, and when an area can give nothing else, they move on. And there are almost eight _billion_ of us.”

Shock rattles him.

“The thing is, though. . . the world isn't dying. It's not going to end.  _We_ will, because we'll have made it uninhabitable for our species. For most species, really. Mass extinctions were already beginning when I left. And Fen'harel, my world is _beautiful,"_ I say, an unmistakable ache and longing in my voice. "Even now. 

"So,  _we_ will die. But the _planet_ will be just fine. And for every kind of plant and animal and bug that gets wiped out, something new will evolve to take its place, something that thrives on whatever acid and poison we make of everything. Probably they'll all be similar in some way to what we know now. Life tends to stick to a few basics, but it spins infinite variations of them. Eventually, some of them may become sentient enough to decide it’s ok to poison everything they need in order to live. I suppose having a mortal life and a disconnect from the deeper places of the world makes us short-sighted.

“What I wonder is, what gives a person the right to decide in place of nature and its meticulous balance? A society I can understand. They're unruly and they tend to be governed by the most selfish and arrogant among them. But what gives one person the right to decide that one form of life is more valid than another? Or inferior? See, that’s a big part of the problem where I come from. ‘It isn’t like us, so it doesn’t really count. It's not the same.’ We have genocides in our history that might made even you blush, and every one of them was born from 'They aren't like us. They're not really people. They're different.'”

“Right” is a simple question. “Right” is a choice, a perspective. But to believe you truly _can_ make that choice. . . . I envy that kind of self-confidence. And I'm smart enough to be wary of it.

"Now, I have this theory that you  _know_ the people of this world are real. If you didn't, you wouldn't be so afraid of the possibility of being corrupted by that kind of thinking. You wouldn't have had to kill one of your best and oldest friends. Which isn't an accusation; I can't imagine what that cost you. And frankly I've wondered if I knew Felassan, because when I think about him being gone, it tries to rip something in my chest that refuses to come apart, and is all the more pained for it."

I see a memory of emotion in him: I  _did_ know Felassan. We had been. . . close. The ache in me deepens exponentially, and I pull my energy inward before he can see.

[So you believe I should let the consequences lay.] There is bitterness saturating his voice. There is the resignation of someone watching an end unfold that they had ‘known’ was coming, but had so badly wanted to be wrong about. What a foregone conclusion I must have been. No wonder he had wanted as many chances to sway me as he thought he could get. I wonder briefly if he had tried to recruit Cole. But probably not. I can't see him trying to use spirits the way he is willing to use people.

“I didn’t say that,” I reply calmly. “And honestly. . . I don’t know where I stand on it. I think there are the lives that exist now, in this world. And there are the lives that _could_ exist, in the world you want to create. To me, that potential energy, that theoretical energy, is just as valid as existing energy, because that’s all it is: energy. That's all everything is, whether it's people or ether or the places between the stars. In the end, our pain, our suffering, our joy and achievements, our lives and deaths, they don’t matter. The universe carries on, and it's probably indifferent. Matter is matter and energy is energy, and the form it takes doesn't really matter much to me.”

I wonder suddenly if I'll feel sick the next time I look at one of the people I consider my friends, knowing how casually I spoke of their deaths the night before. Of the decimation of every person and every thing they know and care about. I could never explain to them how two things that should completely oppose one another can be true at the same time. That I love them, that I care for them, that they matter to me, and that I understand that none of us means one goddamned thing in the end when you zoom out far enough. Our lives, every experience a person can have, are priceless and impossibly beautiful, because they are nothing but sparks from a fire against a dark sky: breathtaking for an instant and then gone forever.

In a way, maybe I am  well matched to Fen’harel. Maybe I am amoral. Maybe I am even a monster. But in the end, I am what I am. If I seek anything, it is only to find out what that is and to be true to it.

 _'Find who you are,'_  the creature in the Fade had said. _'Not the details, those don’t matter. But the heart, **that** you must nurture.'_  

[Then why do you bother with the Inquisition? If you believe nothing matters, why did you not simply walk away? Why do you not walk away now?] The words are almost scathing, and there is an accusation under them. It seems oddly personal.

“I bother with the Inquisition,” I say, heat and life entering my tone for the first time tonight, “because if I have to live, then that is the world I want to live in. One where we help each other. One where we fight for balance and flexibility and rightness, if we have to fight. For the things every person knows are right without every having to be told. For the ability to find what is Good in the world and pursue it for ourselves. Because the consequences of kind and compassionate acts feel vastly different from selfish, angry, short-sighted ones. Because I’m not the universe, not right now. I am small, and I am here, and I have to look at things from the ground. It isn’t your _plan_ I necessarily have a problem with, Fen'harel," I fairly snap. "It’s your reasoning.”

Redcliffe occurs to me, and I sigh heavily. “In a little while, I’m going to be shot forward in time by one year.”

Shock vibrates in him again.

“By that time, in a world without the anchor, the Breach will have grown so large that it encompasses the whole sky. Sethius will have crushed the world under the heel of armies of men and demons. Red lyrium will be as abundant as plain stone, and people, so many people, will be dead.

“As the plan goes, I'll find a way to get back to this time and ensure that future never comes about. I would do it without question, there wouldn't even be a decision to make, because that future would be too horrific to allow. Because there, in the moment, there would be too much suffering and evil for me to want to allow it in the face of any better option. Until I stopped to think about it. But even then, the choice would be made for me by the fact that the world would literally end if I did nothing. Not just end as we know it, but end, period. No more chances for mistakes or successes or nature to take its course.

"But that world will be full of people. It won’t just be monsters and victims and heroes. There will be bystanders. There will be children. Some of them won't be born or conceived in this timeline. There I have snuffed out lives that will never be seen again. There will be millers and cobblers and jewelers and beggars, street performers and prostitutes and merchants. Real people. Yes, they're here in this time, but not as they will be in that future. Those people will never exist again. I will be killing every one of them.

“You ended your time in your world - our world," I allow, but it is only for his benefit, "by taking a desperate action because if you did not, the world would be destroyed. You went to sleep on the heel of that act of desperation. You woke on it. And you found. . . well. I know what you found. I want to say the situation in my case will be more complicated, but it really isn't. The irony of talking to you about leaving catastrophic consequences where they lie, allowing them to play out and for the world to right itself as it sees fit while knowing that I will do the exact opposite, eradicating an entire world in favor of a more palatable one. . . the irony of that is not lost on me."

[You are a good deal more honest than you once were.] It is almost begrudging.

I pause. "Well. . . as you've said, apparently I'm not quite who I used to be." It feels like such a lonely thing, all of a sudden. Sorrow lays on me like a thick blanket, muffling everything as if I'm standing in a rainstorm. He wants to edge closer. He doesn't.

“It's also not lost on me that right and wrong are ultimately subjective. But _I_  can give objective reasons why ending that future is probably the right thing to do, and the only people who might ever argue are philosophers. _That_ is my problem with what you have planned. You can't give me worthy, objective reasons why it's the right thing to do.

“You’re grieving the consequence of a decision you made which, by the way," I say with an incredulous little laugh, "I really don’t think was any decision at all. And that's the spearhead of your plans. You tell me you want to restore our time and our people. But our people were worse than Orlais and Tevinter combined, Fen’harel. So what you really consider superior when we get down to it, assuming I’m understanding this right, is long lives and a fuller world and existence. And more than anything, it's familiarity. Something you had come to love despite its faults. You're going to end the world because you're  _homesick._ " I held up a hand to stop what he was going to say. "I know, I know that's an oversimplification. But I'm not wrong. You miss your home. You miss your people. And you miss it all on behalf of the elvhen who never got to see it. On behalf of every descendant so stunted they're basically beyond recognition.  
  
"But honestly, do people really need longer lives and more power with which to fuck things up? They seem to be doing a pretty good job as they are from where I’m sitting. There was no magic in my world  _at all_ and we still did just. . . a _staggeringly_  good job of it."

I pause. My energy tells him I'm not done. His tells me he will wait. It is a basal kind of heaven, even now.

“Tell me something: did the destruction of the world that threatened when you created the Veil have anything to do with the titans?”

[. . .Yes.]

I nod to myself at a theory confirmed. “Titans that your people began attacking and harvesting from, at least in part because the little creatures that scurried about inside of them weren’t valid forms of life. They weren’t really people. _Your_ people were doing them a favor by wiping them out. Putting them out of their misery.”

[That was not my decision,] he says, a hard note entering his voice. Maybe he had disagreed. I can hope, even if I'll never know.

“I didn’t say it was. And maybe I can understand how you feel. After a week traveling with an elf I was only just starting to be able to look at her without feeling sick. She probably thinks I hate her. But I don’t know that I think they all deserve to die because of it.

"I was a human, Fen’harel. I know what it feels like to be one of those dolls, and I can tell you that from the inside, I sure as shit felt like a real person. You won't want to hear this, but I felt  _exactly_ the way I feel now, absent the racial differences and my connection to the Fade, which is more or less like having a new sense." An incredible, expansive, world-changing sense, but not as much as he might like to think. And knowing what it felt like with and without it now, I would never say I'd rather die than go back to the way I had been. It would hurt. I'd feel muzzled and small, muted and alone, but life would still be life.

“This, now, _is_ your decision, and you’re consoling yourself with the idea that you ‘don’t have a choice,’ when really, the only question is what choice you, one single person, feels like he can live with. You're going to sacrifice millions of people to make yourself feel better, and you can excuse it by saying that it's for the world, for a race who shouldn't have been wiped out, but that's all it boils down to.

"I want to know why you have the right to make that decision. Not the ability. The right. This world is neck-deep in problems. So was y-- ours." I kick myself inwardly. Reminding him that I didn't _feel_ like a part of that world is hardly going to help my case. "How do you know that these broken and warped people you’re prepared to end aren’t another Children of the Stone? That you won’t find their validity until after it’s too late to undo another one of your plans that proves upset by something you couldn't have foreseen? You don't have the best track record.”

[. . . I do not.] There is no denial in his voice. No realization. He has already thought this out.

I am disappointed, but not surprised. He is too smart not to have already considered all of this, and that is what frightens me. That there is no argument that can pierce his resolve, because he has already thought of all of them himself, and made the decision regardless. If it is the wrong thing to do, he will do it anyway. He has plucked out his own eyes and punctured his ears so he could not risk being swayed.

I huff a sad, quiet laugh, and I am more than a little amazed. _”Fuck_ but you’re arrogant.”

[An overabundance of pride was ever one of my defining traits,] he says, and he is wry despite the stifling, crushing weight of our conversation. He is also trying to tell me something; there is a layer wrapped up inside the words, and he is waiting for my reaction.

I cast around for what he could be searching for-- A sharp pain lances through my forehead and the heel of my hand flies to it with a pained sound.

Suddenly he is in front of me. "Don't touch me," and I warn sharply.

He takes a slow step back.

[What is causing this?] He asks, hard and metallic worry in his voice. It is as if he has asked me this question before and he almost despairs, frustrated at the lack of an answer. No one likes to feel helpless, least of all him.

“Thinking about you," I finally manage. "Or Solas. It shoots up at random, but I can’t pick out patterns because I lose whatever whisper of thought caused it,” I say, not hiding the fact that I am pissed about it at the moment. "No one has been reckless enough to try to remind me, if they could."

I take deep breaths, releasing a little of the pain with each one, until I regain my detachment, my cool. It is much safer than allowing this conversation to touch anything too deep within me. It is much safer than feeling the worry, the sharp sadness that threatens like an animal, a monster one step from tearing me in half and leaving me to bleed in agony until the slide of death comes. If it ever will.

I almost laugh. I know this feeling well.

I straighten and let my head fall against the tree. He is so tall, I didn’t have to look down the planes of my face to meet his eyes.

“This is my problem with your plan. I understand," I say kindly. "I understand that in elvhenan, you were just a man. You worked within the conditions you were given and tried nothing more than to do the right thing. It’s what I’ll do, over and over and over again as the Inquisitor, hoping for the best. You didn’t ask for it. You didn’t want a war, you didn’t want to lead. You just wanted to _help_ people, to free them, and you wanted them to think for themselves, and god but why was that so much to ask?”

A sorrow wells up in him so vast and deep that I am reminded of the flood of feeling, as if from inside of myself, I got when I touched the despair demon. I quaver involuntarily; it causes me physical pain.

“You’re not trying to help people now. You’re trying to undo something you never could have foreseen that resulted from actions you were all but obligated to take. If you say there were no better alternatives, I believe you. With no reservations. You threw a stone into the water to stop a flood, and you blame yourself, you probably _hate_ yourself, for the way the ripples bounced off the shore, against every leaf and twig, and the damage that those incalculable movements did.

“There’s a difference between accountability and culpability, Fen’harel, and I know that’s not all this is about. But I also don’t know if I can sign off on something that’s going to affect other people on such a scale when you are willfully making an emotional decision. And if I’m being honest. . . my real problem? It's just as selfish as your plan." I pause. "I don’t know if I can watch you do it to yourself.”

[And what would you do?] He snaps angrily. [If you acted out of desperation and woke to find that those actions had destroyed the world? If you had to wake up and know that every horror you beheld was your fault?]

I blow a tight breath out of my nose and close my eyes, willing away the impulse to argue. I cast my mind into a blank place and put myself into the position he described.

“I would mourn,” I finally say. “Then I would take what was in front of me and try to help it be the best it could. I’m not god. And I’m not interested in playing one--" 

[Says the "Maker's Prophet,"] he scoffs.

"And," I go on, voice sharpening, _"I_ have an end to the line of thinking 'this time will be different, this time it will work, this time I will do it right. This time I will ensure I am not surprised.' Well news to you, apparently,  _you're not God._

“And don’t take your mood out on me,” I snap. “I’m not your fucking enemy, and I’m not going to apologize for not just. . . batting my eyes adoringly and going along with your plan for mass genocide!" I push to my feet, quick and almost unconsciously. "You are the last person in the world who gets to complain about being questioned!

 _“I don’t want you to do this to yourself,”_ I enunciate, leaning toward him. Angry, afraid tears well in my eyes, but I don’t let them fall. “I worry there won’t be anything left of you. And I know what it’s like to live as a shell. That’s all I was. I knew how to survive anything, and so I stood in front of other people and I took their pain.” Despite my effort, the tears have begun to roll down my cheeks, swollen and heavy and silent. “I did the hard things so they wouldn’t have to. Because I could, because I was much better at handling them and, frankly, because it was a lot easier for me to go through it myself than to watch them suffer, helpless to do anything about it.

“I have been taken away from _everything,_ and I have had everything taken away from me and you are the only thing, the _only thing_ I have that feels like. . . .” I sniff wetly, angrily. “That feels like home. Do you understand how profoundly alone _I_ am? There are other elvhen in the world, Fen'harel. How many of me are there? 

"I remembered you, buried so deep in my bones that no one could take it from me, even when they took everything else. So pardon fucking me if I don’t immediately jump onboard with something that is going to as good as kill you. _Worse_ than kill you. I know what that road looks like,” I say viciously, “and I would do anything to keep someone like you away from it.”

[. . .What are you talking about?] he asks, confused. I feel it, something in me rising to the surface that does not belong here, in this world. Suddenly I understand how I could "feel" the same when I was so obviously different.

My eyes widen. A pain, dull and thudding and sharp as raw, cut metal is eating at my chest like a cancer.

This was why I hadn’t wanted to remember.

I press a hand hard to my sternum and fold over on myself, squeezing my eyes shut, trying to stay loose enough that the worst of it can’t take hold. I know that is all I can do.

[Nuaelan?] He is well beyond worried.

“Just. . . wait,” I whisper-plea.

Floods, washes of injury pulse through me, and an unbidden sound, strangled and torn, rips from my mouth. The pain is so full it literally takes my breath.

A wash of certainty and comfort encircle me like a thick, heavy, heated blanket. I feel arms that aren’t arms take me and hold me. _“Shhh,”_ a voice says in my ear. I feel what it looked like to him when so much pain poured out of me.

He had been frightened.

Slowly, the panic that was chipping away with poisoned tips at the deepest part of my chest calms. Buzzing stills, an angry hive calming under gentle smoke.

 _”Shit,”_ I breathe.

The "arms" retract and Fen’harel, shrunken to closer a normal size, places a gentle paw on my knee in a very human gesture.

[What happened to you?] he whispers.

I can’t speak right away. 

“I knew,” I breathe. “There were clues that I shouldn’t want the memories of my old life back, the life I had before coming. . . coming _back_ here?” I shake my head, one hand clenched in the fabric over the center of my chest. “There is a host of monsters in me. It is dark and frenzied and _terrifying,_ and I think my amnesia is the only thing that’s keeping it from eating me alive. I think there was something wrong with me, or something. . . that something happened to me. Both, maybe. When I woke up below the chantry, it was like a revelation. It was like someone had taken chains from my mind, scales from my eyes, my heart. Even my body felt lighter. And I don’t think it was just that I went from being human to being elvhen. It was like someone took hundreds of pounds from each of my limbs.” My eyes are cast back to memories that feel both old and immediate.

I shake myself back into my body. This isn’t why I’m here. I squeeze my eyes closed and rock forward to sit on my heels, fists pressing into the earth to ground myself. I take a deep, deep breath.

When I go on, I put kindness in my voice and rest my arms on my thighs. “I know what made you. I can make a good guess, anyway. And you know, don't you? That just because people say something about you over and over and again, that doesn’t mean it’s true. Sometimes all it means is that they have a misconception in common. Or a prejudice, or a blindness.”

He is watching me closely, his energy out and attentive, but hovering back. That is not what it wants to be doing, but he is cautious, and I have rounded on him too many times tonight. This is too important.

“I think you believe, deep down, that you’re ruination. But you’re not.

“‘From childhood’s hour I have not been as others were; I have not seen as others saw; I could not bring my passions from a common spring. From the same source I have not taken my sorrow; I could not awaken my heart to joy at the same tone;’” I pause to pierce his eyes as I go on. “‘And all I loved, I loved alone.’ A poet from my world wrote that a long time ago.”

I look down at the loose tunic I’m in and pluck at the soft material, rubbing it between two fingers. It is like velvet and satin and roughspun all at once. The motion is a needle of comfort jabbing into me through the bones and nerves of my fingers. It hurts before it helps.

“I don’t remember you. I don’t know how much information I’m missing. But I know you like I know the others, and. . . you’re not a bad person, Fen’harel,” I whisper. “Maybe you were, when you were young, I don't know. But you have't been for a long time. You’re not a monster. Or a waste, or a fool. How many of them said that you were over the millennia? Again, and again, and again. How many of them say it now? Did it start from your 'birth?'

"When we're young and people tell us we're garbage, we tend to listen. We can't help it. We think they're showing us the truth of who we are, when actually what they're just showing us is how messed up _they_ are. You're brilliant. And bright. Your thoughts and opinions and ideas don’t merit dismissal and derision out of hand. It's only because you try to share things with them that they haven't already considered. People are not open-minded. New things scare them. It threatens them, so they try to put you in line, and shame is very effective at doing that. You could probably break apart into the birth of a new spirit: Thick Skin. But the pain that creates that skin. . . .” I trail off. That pain doesn’t go away. It stays locked inside. It is the genesis and sustenance of iron walls of deep mistrust. Of fear. And fear can disguise itself as very ugly things.

“The more different you are, the more alone. We weren’t made to be alone. You, especially - I assume the form of a wolf was not random. We’re pack animals. People _and_ wolves. And you have spent too much time alone," I say, gentle and soft and firm and honest.

“You're willing to look where others aren't. To see things others don't want to." I pause. "Are you willing to look at yourself?"

I lower my eyes until I can smile in a kind, hopeful sort of way. “You just need to spend less time around people who are shitty." I can't manage to say the word I want to, to call him "brother," but it is there, plain in the air for him to see. "And idiots. And you need to spend _more_ time around people who are curious, who have open minds. Other people who have eyes, and who want to use them. Like you.” I warm my smile. A small part of me argues with what I’m saying, but I believe he _used_ to be that person. I believe he's lost right now, and I believe that sometimes, suggestion can be very powerful - the suggestion of faith even more so. I have hope, even a little, and if I have _any_  I will gladly spend it on him.

“You’re not a bad person, Fen’harel.” My spirit is out and honest, reaching to him in comfort, in love, in possibility. “You’re not broken. You’re good. And you can _do_ good. You are not the end.”

It is a time without time we stare at each other, until he whispers, [I know you.] It is like a revelation.

[Would you. . . . Nuaelan, would you close your eyes?]

I give him a curious look, but do as he asks.

[Keep them closed.] It is to my shock when I feel a rough hand slip into mine. When it pulls me to my feet in one fluid, sure motion, I have forgotten what it is to breathe. When arms circle me, holding me to a broad, solid, and very real chest, I feel as if a brand has been plunged into the heart of me.

His cheek slides up the column of my neck with tender slowness, his nose coming to rest under my earlobe with a gentle nudge. He exhales, long and low, and it is as if he has never breathed before. The feeling in him is painful, overwhelming, hard and twisting and desperate and broken. The breath flows over my skin like heavy, liquid silk.

“Ar lath, falon,” he whispers. “My sister. My heart.”

Something in me cracks open, and the brand turns to the heart of a star.

I slide my hands up his sides, over his broad back and shoulder blades. The feel of smooth, thin material is under my fingers as it slides between my palms and his skin. I lean into the embrace. I run a hand over his scalp and down his neck. Long, smooth hair is under my fingers. I repeat the motion over and over and over. I can think of nothing else to do, and I feel like he - ancient, clever, frightening, and powerful enough to have been mistaken for a god - is raw and open and almost small right then. I wonder how long it has been since he showed this to anyone, or even to himself.

I hold him in return, and I try to push every piece of comfort and acceptance and love into him that I can without being too obvious. I wish I could fix this for him. He bleeds pain like tar.

He “knows” he has to walk the road alone, he has decided it. He knows no one should be so sullied. Like me, he would refuse to allow another to take on the pain if he can do it. But he wants to. I am the one thing left that he does not want to let go of. Maybe part of him wonders if he should cut me out of his heart for that very reason, like removing an infected limb before the blood poison can spread.

I see myself through his eyes. Once again, I am to him the one piece of himself left in the world - the “him” who came before war and horror. I shine more brightly for knowing that, as if I haven’t just been made to do what Daern’thal wanted, but as if I have been made for this, too.

But he will have to choose. Where he is now, held and holding, there is no edge to fall from. But it will come soon, and it is impossible to know if he will step into it. As close as I ever come to truly praying, I do in this moment.

I huff a quiet laugh, a shaky sound. “I love you too, dummy,” I say, just as quiet. It is heartfelt and almost raw, and at the same time it makes something jab upward in my chest that has me fighting a sob. I have no idea where it comes from or what it is. “So much.” I think I have never felt so whole, because I could never truly forget a feeling like this.

‘I don’t want to lose you.’

I’m not really sure whose plea it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Alone" by Poe. 
> 
> "Asala-taar: "Soul sickness;" a Qunari combat ailment that seems analogous to a combat stress reaction, or even post-traumatic stress disorder. It is an epidemic in Seheron, where statistically two soldiers contract it for every one casualty. Sufferers are usually removed from combat and reassigned among the priesthood and workers."  
> \- DA Wiki
> 
> 7/10/17: Scene with the bug expanded  
> 7/18/17: Edits and additions. Latter mostly in the Varric/Nua scene.  
> 


	18. Big Brothers And Little Sisters

Josephine and Cullen are trying and failing not to eyeball Fen'harel. I don't blame them; he has not bothered to size himself down tonight, and lays curled around me, head up and watching them, front paws crossed. His tail is planted in front of my feet like a furred barrier. He does not even try to hide the fact that it is a claim. I don't fault him that right now, and if I'm being honest, I wouldn't hate it even if I did.

“I’m sorry to come to you both like this without your permission," I say, "but it’s an emergency. I wouldn’t do it otherwise.”

“What is it?” Josephine asks, now taking Fen in with open curiosity.

“The dalish. Apparently--”

“Does this have anything to with why they’ve been showing up outside of Haven?” Cullen interrupts irritably.

“Oh, good," I say flatly. "It’s already started.” I massage my forehead with one hand. “Apparently every single one of them had a dream - on the same night if the woman I talked to is to be believed - telling them that I'm the salvation of their people and they're all to come to my aid in Haven immediately."

“All of. . . you can’t mean _literally_. . . you mean all the dalish in Ferelden, right? That's what you meant to say?"

It feels like I've shrunk down by a quarter. “No. I mean _all_ of them. Every single dalish in Thedas. They’re all headed toward Haven.”

“Maker,” Cullen breaths. “It will cause a riot. We can’t support that many. There have to be thousands upon thousands.”

“Tens of thousands, if I have my guess. Maybe 100,000 or more. And that’s assuming the dreams are _only_ happening for the dalish, and not just. . . elves in general.”

Josephine's lips part, eyes widening, and Cullen scrubs a hand over his face, then looks up as if to the heavens.

“That was more or less my reaction,” I say drily.

“What. . . these dreams, what are they?” Cullen asks.

“I have no idea. Something or someone pretended to be one of their gods, apparently convincingly. It seems like too much of a coincidence to not have something to do with how I got here or how I got the mark or with the demons chasing me, but all I can do is guess. I have an idea about how to fix that last bit, but he," I tilted my head back toward Fen'harel, "disagrees with my methods."

"What methods?" Cullen asks.

[She wishes to use herself as bait.] His tone perfectly conveys his thoughts on the matter.

"Are you--" Cullen seems to bite his tongue. "Forgive me, Prophet, but are you  _out of your mind?_ "

At Fen'harel's smug satisfaction, I mutter peevishly at him, "Yeah, and it's your favorite boyfriend agreeing with you, and everything."

[Even the most hopeless mind can stumble upon good sense,] he says privately.

I growl silently at him.

“I must agree," Josephine said. "It would likely be effective, but if you are taken or killed, that would hardly matter."

"Not. One. Word," I say quietly through my teeth at the wolf behind me. At the others I wave a dismissive hand.

"This thing," Josephine says. "Is it possible the ancient elves worshiped a creature of the Fade and mistook it for a god?”

I shake my head readily. “Their gods were real, they just weren’t gods. And elvhen were far too familiar with the Fade and spirits to--” ‘To fall for something like that,’ I was going to say. But when you had forever to pull a con, you could change even simple men and women into gods.

A breath puffs out through my lips and I start again. “The stories have been warped almost beyond recognition over the millennia." I feel a silent stir from Fen'harel, but it is a tiny thing. "But they did technically exist. It can’t _be_ one of them, though, because they were all locked away before humans arrived in Thedas.”

"Every prison can be broken out of sooner or later," Cullen says darkly.

"Not this one," I say with a laugh that suggests how ludicrous I find the idea.

“The knowledge you must have,” Josephine breathes. I see the gears turning in her head. “We could leverage your information for resources, or space or alliances. Every university, study, scholarly organization. . . court historians, family lines, they would clamber over themselves for five minutes with you. It would be enough to solve many of our current problems.”

“I don’t know everything, Josephine.”

“You know enough,” she says with an incredulous laugh. “What you said about the first Inquisitor alone--”

“I’m sure that will all prove useful," Cullen says peevishly, "but can we please get back to the problem at hand? We already have over _five hundred,"_ he enunciates, "dalish camped outside the gates of Haven, and you’re saying that we can expect tens of thousands more at least? My soldiers started turning them away days ago, but scouts have them camped not a mile away. They won't leave. It has nearly come to blows more than once. They're utterly intractable.”

Fen'harel snorts, earning him curious looks from the advisers.

“If I find out who orchestrated it, believe me, they’re getting a kick square to the groin,” I say darkly.

“That’s all well and good,” he replies, “but what are we to _do?_ Haven wasn’t built to be a military outpost, let alone a makeshift city. We're on shaky enough ground with the Chantry as it is, and the moment they get wind of this--”

“You said they’re camped outside of Haven, right?” I interrupt.

“For now.”

I chew on a thumbnail and speak as I think. “The dalish are nothing if not proud. I doubt they'll set foot in the town. They’ve lived in harsh conditions for generations, too. If I had to guess, and this is a rough guess, mind, but they’ll all probably follow suit with the dalish who are already there and set up their camps at a safe distance.”

“Even if they can supply themselves for Maker knows how long, the impact on our own people will be untenable. Hunting is already sparse in the region, and the amount of _waste. . . .”_ he trails off as if pained.

“They have the Arlathvhen every ten years, a gathering of all the clans, and as far as I know they manage it without laying waste to the environment. It goes on for months. Probably not in snowy regions, but the concepts are the same. In any event, you only need to find a temporary solution.”

“Thank the Maker,” Cullen sighs. “You have a plan, then?”

“. . .Sure. Let’s go with that. Josephine,” I turn to her before Cullen can ask the logical question, “has Lelina started sending the men and women out?”

“Yes. Mostly to the trade hubs, and many to smaller cities and larger towns that see travelers. The timing is fortunate with the meeting in Val Royeaux happening soon; word will spread much more quickly than normal. She is confident that travelers will carry the tales to larger cities and outlying settlements more credibly than a handful of agents could.”

I nod. “Get word to them, then; they’re going to need to head off the idea that the elven “prophet” has decided to ally herself with the heathen dalish, or as the Commander says, Orlais will crush us before we can take our first breath. _If_  we can convince the clerics that this isn’t yet another move against the Chantry. 

“Tell them. . . I don’t know. I don't care. Just make something up. Maybe prick noble pride by dropping some hint about ‘filthy savages’ stepping up when they won't, or whatever it is they call the dalish. At least the clans stay well away from settlements when they travel.”

“You said we only need a solution ‘temporarily,” Cullen prompts. _”How_ temporarily?”

I hum, considering. My lips move soundlessly as I tick off on my fingers all the things we’d need to do before Skyhold, accounting for travel times. “I think,” I say slowly, “around three months. Say. . . three to four months. It might be more, but I don’t think so.”

"You think?"

"I'm sorry my magical predictions of the future aren't specific enough for you, Cullen," I half snap.

Josephine looks from me to him and back. One of her brows arches ever so slightly.

“I didn't mean it like that," Cullen says, backpedaling fast. "Just. . . that’s enough time to travel by foot to Haven from anywhere in Thedas.”

I look at him, my face almost as grim as his. “That complicates things,” I say, in the likely the largest understatement ever uttered.

[The dalish will tend to themselves,] Fen'harel says to us all. [They will not allow their presence to be an undue strain on local wildlife or resources. Their respect for nature is too great. I would concern yourselves more with logistics. They will not allow themselves to be turned away; they have been waiting for this moment for the whole of their recorded history.]

A muscle in Cullen’s jaw twitches, but he seems to listen. “Josephine, how many dalish do we have in the Inquisition at present?”

“One, Commander. Elden.”

“Bollocks,” Cullen swears. “Oh, Maker, I’m sorry,” he says to me, clearly embarrassed. He puts a hand to the back of his neck absently and sighs.

“What,” I laugh, “why aren’t you apologizing to Josephine? She’s the only proper lady here, and I swear like a sailor! In at least two languages.”

Cullen allows himself a rueful smile. “My apologies, Lady Montilyet.”

“That’s quite alright, Commander,” she allows, clearly amused.

I should watch him with his soldiers some time, because I know he is respected, his ire feared, but I can't reconcile a terrifying commander with the polite, if often peevish man I know.

“We’ll need to speak to Leliana as soon as we wake up, in any event. We’ll have her send word for Elden to return immediately. Unless you cannot do without her, that is,” he adds, looking at me.

I shake my head. “We were to meet up at Dennet’s farm tomorrow, anyway. Once we regroup, we’ll have plenty of people without her. She’s talented, though. And funny. Easy to be around. I've liked traveling with her.” <i>'Mostly,'</i> I think.

“Funny?” he asks as if bewildered.

“If you like dry humor, I guess,” I say with a shrug and a small grin. “Apparently I do.”

“I’ve never heard her crack a joke,” Cullen says, and I smile a little.

I sober. “I wish I could say _this_ was a joke.

“I want to talk to Fen," I bump him gently with my shoulder, "about my plans for Val Royeaux tonight, so if you don’t have any questions? Well, any questions I can actually help with,” I say, flat and self-deprecating. I know this isn’t my fault. All the same, I feel the pressure of being the cause, pointless though that is. All of this should have been simpler. Which, given the bare-bones situation, is a horrifying thought.

Josephine glances at Cullen, who shakes his head. “Unfortunately not,” she says. “I think it would be a good idea if we met again tomorrow night, however. We can discuss the situation in Haven and get a more detailed idea of how long it will be until your return."

I nod slowly, knowing I won't be able to give them as much of a clear estimate as they'd like. “Will do. Should I leave you two to chat, or would you like to go back to sleep?”

“Actually, if you can spare the time, I would like a word with you,” Cullen says. “I would prefer it be in private,” he says with a glance at Fen’harel, “but that is obviously not an option.”

“Actually,” I repeat, ignoring the quiet, territorial warning growl rippling through Fen’harel’s ara'lin, “there's a safe place I go when Fen can’t be with me. Honestly," I joke, "it’s as if he has a life outside of me sometimes. Selfish ass.”

Cullen’s polite smile looks physically painful.

“Shall we go now?” I ask.

“Didn't need to speak to your. . . friend?” I get the sense he wanted to say “pet.”

“I have every night with him, Cullen,” I say with a small smile, and a vicious sense of victory ripples over Fen. I fight not to roll my eyes. “I don’t think one more night will spell the end of the world even if we can’t get to it before morning.”

“I will leave you both to it then,” Josephine says. “I was having quite a good dream when you came. Is there any way you can return me to it?”

“Only if you want to tell me about it in great detail,” I say with a grin.

She colors, a beautiful blush across the fullest parts of her high-boned cheeks. “Perhaps I will see where my mind takes me, on second thought.”

I send her off with a smile and a nod, and Fen'harel stands and puts himself between Cullen and I, his back to the man.

I want to hit him.

[I would caution against this.]

". . . Can he hear you?" I whisper. And that is how I learn that ancient, god-like magical Fade wolves can roll their eyes.

"Tch. Don't get tetchy with me, it was a perfectly reasonable question," I say at a normal volume.

"Prophet?" Cullen asks, confused.

"Would-- Do you mind?" I say peevishly to Fen'harel. "Move. And don't be an ass," I add in an undertone.

He huffs in annoyance, and it is enough to send my hair billowing. I do nothing to hide my ire as he sits next to me, tall and straight and regal as a feline, while I start to comb through the tangle he has made of my hair.

[I would prefer you not be alone with him,] he says frankly, staring directly at Cullen.

I look between the two, but it's obvious Fen'harel is still speaking privately. I roll my eyes.

"Why, is he going to eat me?" I ask sarcastically.

I see the moment Cullen realizes what's happening. "What is he saying?" he asks, unamused.

“Nothing complimentary. To himself,” I reply archly.

Fen’harel growls quietly at me.

“Well,” I shoot back.

[It is nothing of concern to you, templar.]

"Mother of god," I mutter as I put my face in my hand.

At the same moment, I see Cullen's fists clench unconsciously. "I have a name, thank you, and I have not been a templar for some time. Though I am still more than well versed in the tricks of demons." His tone is downright deadly, and abruptly I fear how this is going to escalate. "And I doubt very much that it does not concern me. Her _safety_ concerns me," he says, the warning painfully clear.

“. . . You know it _is_ rude to talk in front of other people when they can’t understand you,” I say diplomatically.

[Nua-]

I recognize his tone and cut him off. "Oh Jesus Christ why don't you just pee on me," I snap.

Cullen snorts, and that only eggs Fen'harel on.

[Can he feel hatred or love as we do? Or see the true fullness of a rainbow as it hangs in the air before it has even fully formed? Does he know the sound of a cloud as it gathers into rain? The scent when it crystallizes into snow?]

“Do you?” I ask coldly.

[There are lessons you do not learn until your hundredth year, Nua. Your thousandth. Your ten thousandth. The quicklings will never be able to understand you, not truly, no matter how they may appear. Their lives are not even the span of a breath to us.]

My face darkens. "I am  _not_ Fellassan," I say, my tone deadly with warning, "and I am not," I quiet my voice to a whisper, "one of your agents. Who I choose to trust and care about and," I lower my voice further,  _"consider a person_ is my fucking business. A little trust, _if you please._ I'm not a goddamned idiot."

A quiet, warning growl is rippling around him.

"He's not proposing marriage for fuck's sake," I say, my voice raising more than I intend. "The man doesn't even like me very much--"

[You cannot possibly be that obtuse.]

"He's my  _Commander,"_ I cut over him angrily, "he's professional, he's not an idiot, and occasionally he is going to want to talk to me about Inquisition business! Or would you prefer to lock me in a glass case so none of the filthy quicklings can touch one of _your_ people?" 

"I can hear you, you know." Cullen's voice is droll and unamused.

Slowly, so slowly, I look up, then over at him. I realize I have leaned in toward Fen'harel, and straighten myself. "Well. I'm just. . . the best at diffusing tense situations then, aren't I."

I want to crawl into a hole.

"It can wait, if you would prefer," he says drily. He is clearly unamused. I feel like a complete idiot.

I smile despite myself, but it is hardly an amused thing. "Honestly, Commander, at this point I'd go with you just to spite him. Oh, what," I snap at Fen'harel's silent reply. "Give me one logical reason you object to a conversation with a man who, quite frankly, is infinitely more trustworthy than you." 

I regret the words the instant they are out of my mouth. "I'm sorry," I rush to say. 

It is a long, long time before he answers. It is a pause on elvhen time, not mortal time. Distantly, I am impressed at Cullen's patience.

[You have every reason not to trust me,] he finally says quietly.

"I didn't mean--"

[You should not apologize for your honesty, Nuaelan. I simply worry that without your memories. . . . It does not matter. As you have pointed out, you are not under my command.] I feel his voice change so that it's "public" once more. [I was following a lead on our demon problem before you arrived tonight. I will return to it once you are in the forest.] "Our," he said. Not "Your."

"Fen'h-- Fen," I begin. We made so much progress not an hour ago, and I may have shattered it in my carelessness. It isn't like me to just blurt something out like that, for it to come out without my permission. It's as if a piece of me is tearing away from the rest, and I can't understand why.

[Nua,] he says strongly. [I have had many years to learn how to let things go. In the larger picture, it is unimportant. We are together. For now, that is what matters.] I see Cullen go rigid. [Your reticence is wise, and we have time to work out the rest.] 'I hope,' he doesn't say, thinking of the future.

I lean forward, burying my fingers in the fur at his jaws and wrapping it in fists. He is strong, sturdy. I don't have to be careful with him the way I do others. I pull his head down to mine until our foreheads rest against one another. I close my eyes and sigh, and it feels as if the sound is mending something. "Ar lath," I whisper.

[And I you, falon. Come. Let us go.]

 

* * * * *

 

Now that we're alone, Cullen looks uncomfortable, like he doesn't know what to say. I wait patiently.

"I never told you," he finally begins. It sounds like something to fill the silence. "It was good to finally hear your voice."

My eyebrows raise curiously. His heartbeat picks up. He smells of adrenaline, a scent I can't identify, embarrassment, and guilt.

He chuckles in a self-deprecating way and one hand brushes absently down the front of his tunic. It's a grooming gesture. The skin around my eyes tightens fractionally, but he does not seem to notice.

"I had heard so much about what you had to say from the others. I'd heard you speak, of course, but hearing it my language is different." He clears his throat. "I. . ." he puts a hand to his neck, and arch a brow subtly. What the hell is making him so uncomfortable? "I hope you'll forgive me for saying so, but I've felt somewhat responsible for you since the day you appeared. I was the first person of rank there, under the Breach. I covered you with my cloak, and when it was clear that the demons weren't going to stop coming from the Rift, I picked you up and ran you to the healers. I was nearby while they worked on you, cleaned you up, when we realized how young you were.” He colors just slightly, there and gone, and this time he does notice my eyes narrowing. “I oversaw Solas as he did. . . whatever it was he did to save you from the mark." He pauses, looking down, then suddenly asks, "How old were you, Nua? Where you came from." When I don't answer right away, he adds, "There has been a good deal of debate over it, and you've said that you sometimes remember things when asked."

"Yes," I say quietly. I am watching him perhaps too closely, trying to figure out where he's going with this. I simply wait for him to continue.

"You look much older in the Fade than you do in person," he offers. His tone is personal, and it makes my stomach twist in the strangest way. "In the real world-"

"The waking world," I interrupt, trying to shove away the feeling in my gut. I've never been alone with him like this. Close, and quiet. His voice has never been this. . . familiar. It is also more friendly than I have ever heard it, and I am utterly flummoxed. I've never met someone so prone to seemingly random mood swings.

"I beg your pardon?" He asks.

"Calling it the real world implies that this one isn't real. It is. It's just different. It would be like saying the sea bed isn't real because it's under water and you can't breathe or move normally and strange creatures live there."

"Ah. Yyyes." He doesn't quite seem to agree, but it's hardly something to argue over now, and I can't blame him anyway, given his life and training. "In the, uh, waking world, then, you look perhaps seventeen? You know I have siblings, I assume?"

My brows pinch together a little at the non sequitur, but I nod.

"Of course," he says with a huffed laugh. "Two of them were younger, and I suppose being brought up to watch out for them, as well as having held command for so long as a templar, I can be a bit. . . overbearing, perhaps." He pauses. "You were so young. Maker knows what horrors you went through to leave you in the condition we found you. You woke to a foreign world, unable to speak the language, and the first thing we did was clap you in irons and interrogate you. Despite that, all you did was try to help. You pushed through pain, fear, I assume, and the hostility of our people, only to have the role of Prophet thrust onto your shoulders. If people twice your age had half as much honor and courage, we wouldn't have needed something like the Conclave." He sighs. "I know I have been perhaps. . . short tempered." I nearly snort. "It wasn't my intent, and my frustration has not been directed at you. I thought you older. That would have been bad enough, but when I found out you were barely old enough to marry, I worried that you couldn't possibly be up to what was going to be demanded of you. I wanted--"  
  
My eyes are wide. Cullen stops and gives me a questioning look, and I open my mouth, but it takes three tries to get anything out. "Sixteen is. . . not the age of marriage where I come from," I explain. "Eighteen is legal, but even at twenty or twenty-two it's still usually considered too young."  
  
His eyebrows raise. "My mother had had four children by the time she was twenty-one."  
  
"But you and your siblings are more than a year apart," I say, confused.

"Yes, of course. My sisters and brother and I were the ones who survived."

When it sinks in, my face goes slack. Of course. Disease, doctors who don't understand the body or basic hygiene. . . a woman would take her life into her hands any time she gave birth here. Infant mortality rates would likewise be frightening - Cullen spoke of his dead siblings as if no more uncommon than the fact that it rains in spring.

He looks at me oddly, confused, but goes on. "I don't know where you come from, but if you are sixteen, seventeen. . . I can only assume you were as extraordinary in your world as you are here."

I look down. It's a gesture of denial. Of shame.

"I've always wanted to help people," Cullen goes on. "Once we found out you were, as we had thought, only a young woman, I. . . well, I became a bit iron-handed," he finishes flatly. I snort quietly. He says it as if it doesn't even make sense to him, and he has that goddamned half-smile on his face. This time, I know exactly what the feeling in my stomach is. Were I awake, blood would be draining from my face.

“It wasn't my place," he adds sincerely, apologetically. He has misunderstood my expression. "You are more than capable. And I don’t mean to say ‘only’ a young woman,” he rushes to add. “I simply mean that I. . . Maker.” He has bent his head and his hand is back on his neck. I wonder if he ever rubs it raw inadvertently.

“I understand what you mean,” I assure, “and I appreciate it, I promise you. But. . . why are you so nervous?”

I am reassuring, patient, calm. On the surface, it is genuine. Inside, I have gone still and watchful and deliberate. I am coiled, waiting to find out what he’s getting at, because something is telling me I’m not going to like it. Listening to that voice is as instinctual as every pull of air into my lungs.

"Good.” Mirth is in his voice, but it is probably more relief and self-deprecation than anything. He sobers. “I've come to have a healthy respect for magic and the danger it can present in my life. Strange magic. . . well, I'm not certain I'll ever truly be comfortable with it. But as a person. . . you have my trust." He smiles, wry and self-deprecating. "You've more than proven yourself, and in all honesty, I've come to realize that I've been looking at you as if you're my younger sister.”

Any softness drops from my face and I feel oddly heavy. I feel Fen'harel nearby, ready to come to me.

"I am not twelve," I snap, much more annoyed than he deserves. I try to gentle my voice. "I'm fine. I'm sorry. That wasn't directed at you. But feel free to stick your nose in and see if you like what you find." I feel an answering chuff of annoyance, and then he is gone.

Cullen looks like he doesn’t know if he’s supposed to apologize or draw a sword that he doesn’t even have.

“Apparently I have _two_ older brothers now,” I say, brusque and peevish. “God help me if you end up being half as overprotective as he is. God help _you,”_ I correct with half a growl.

“I thought we were alone.” He looks utterly fed up, and I imagine that in that moment, he _wishes_ Fen’harel were here.

“We are. He just. . . thought maybe he should butt in. He hasn’t heard anything we’ve said, though.”

He mutters something uncomplimentary about the Fade that I’m not meant to hear. I’m not sure whether or not I’m going to miss no one knowing that I can hear _everything_  they say.

“Right,” he goes on, one hand absently brushing some nonexistent thing from his cuff. He doesn’t realize he does it. He is wearing in a long, loose, thin woolen tunic which gapes open at the neck. It is unfairly flattering, and I am uncertain what to think. Normally I’d consider it a grooming gesture, and his “younger sister” pronouncement a nervous attempt to distance himself from an unwanted attraction. It would explain the shame he had felt earlier if he was attracted to someone he thought was so young. But Cullen is hardly the type to be attracted to one so young, and past a certain level, signs of interest are identical to signs of nervousness. There are some exceptions, but he is not displaying any of them.

For some reason, I am annoyed.

“Where was I,” he says.

“Little sister,” I say flatly. I am not successful at keeping the ire out of my voice. Which is to say, I don’t even try to.

Cullen seems to assume my drop in mood is due to Fen’harel. With a useless sweep of the surrounding forest, he goes on. “It isn’t just that. It’s easy to forget with the way you are that all of this is new to you. Your confidence, your apparent skill and capability at everything you do. And you learn so quickly.

"You know the future, but not how to put on all of your clothing." I flush invisibly, angry at the detail someone has obviously put into their reports. "It’s easy to forget that you have no memories, that you’ve never even been in Thedas. Quite frankly you're frightening in battle, but reports tell us you couldn't build a fire without magic. You know obscure, long-buried history, but you walked into a patch of poisonous plants every child knows to avoid and tried to eat the pith from a fruit that's common in every southern nation."

“Do you have a point, Commander,” I snap.

“Yes.” He sighs heavily, and I feel the axe coming. “I don’t mean to question your judgement, but better that than risk you endangering yourself unknowingly.” He pauses. “I am concerned about your. . . ‘friend.’”

My thoughts turn to static.

Distantly, I can appreciate how straightforward he is. But that appreciation is a background ringing, because this cannot be what it is. Not twice in one night. Not with all the things I actually need to be doing.

“For all that you know, for all your skill and ability, I’m not certain you understand just how dangerous the Fade can be. How deceptive. Demons can see into you as if you were made of glass rather than flesh and blood." He speaks gently, as if breaking something hard to me. Or perhaps as if speaking from painful experience. "They will pull your deepest desires, your greatest pains and fears right out of you and twist them to get what they want. Nothing is above their ability to manipulate,” he says seriously.

My eyes have slowly, slowly been narrowing.

“If you have no memories,” he says gently, “how do you know that this creature can be trusted? That you truly know him? How can he be your _friend_ when you aren't even from this world?”

I stand motionless, frozen in anger and my desire to keep it from overflowing. He means well. I know he does. I close my eyes and pull my lips in, holding them between my teeth.

Abruptly, I laugh. It is a harsh, dry bark, but it is far better than razing the trees around us. “To be fair, that's a very good question. I respect your concern, and I appreciate your honesty. But what you know about demons and the Fade could fit on the tip of a pin compared to what I know. I don’t need a big brother, Commander." My voice has gone cool and decisive. "I _am_ the big brother.”

He opens his mouth to speak, but I hold a hand up to stop him. “Do you know what Fen and I were talking about before we came here? _He_ was warning me away from _you.”_

“Excuse me?” I could almost see the steam start to rise from his skin, little warning curls of it, like a pot of water about to break into a simmer.

“The two of you have problems with one another, for vastly different reasons, and seem dead set on warning me away from the other. He would protect me even more stalwartly than you would, ‘older brother.’” My tone is scathing at the end. It's demeaning, no matter how he intended it. My god-forsaken feelings have been hurt, and it’s appalling.

“As for how I know he isn't a demon, it’s the same as the way I know that the first woman you had feelings for was one of your wards when you were barely older than you think I am.” ‘And that demons and a psychotic mage tried to use that to break you,’ “That you don’t write your older sister Mia often enough and consequently, that your family thought you were dead for months after the Kirkwall rebellion. That you put product in your hair every morning, and that whenever the two of you were in private, Hawke used to flirt _mercilessly._

“Incidentally, she really was only doing it to get under your skin. But she did think you were handsome. She'd like you better now, I think. Hating everything she was on principal was a bit of a wet blanket.”

“How-- I didn’t _hate--”_   he cuts himself off and runs his hands through his hair. The man is transparent. _“Maker_ that is unsettling. What _don’t_ you know?”

“Not much,” I say bluntly. I am too annoyed to care if I make him uncomfortable. It's sloppy. 

“. . . Not much,” he repeats. He is less than ebullient.

“Does saying it back like that make you feel any better?”

“No.”

I sigh heavily. “Look, Cullen. . . I understand what you said earlier, and I really do appreciate it. But I'm not stupid. I know my age and status as a foreigner aren't the whole reason for all of this. . . ." I gesture a hand vaguely between us even as his heart takes off again, "whatever. The rest of it is your business, so long as we can work well together. 

"As for your feelings on magic. . . you believe in the Maker. How exactly do you think he made all of this," I gesture around us, "your world, if not through magic? You understand now that magic isn't the problem - people are the problem. But magic is a potent and singular weapon to be in the hands of someone who wants to do harm. I'm a woman, Cullen. And I wasn't powerful where I come from. Do you think I don't know what that feels like?" When he doesn't get my message, I glance pointedly at his groin. He's a mix of horrified and sickeningly uncomfortable.

"If I’m fate-sent, then _all_ of me is fate-sent, not just the parts you want, and not just when it’s convenient. I’m sorry if I’m not what you wanted. I'm sorry if I'm not what _anyone_ wanted. None of you asked for me, but the thing you all seem to forgetting is that I didn’t sign up for this shit, either. I was  _not_ a volunteer. But I'm here, and so I'm the one everyone is stuck with, willing or not. _I'm_ stuck, too. 

"Believe me, I know I'm not ideal for this job, but I am doing my best and frankly, I don't have to be. I could have run off a hundred times by now and let the world get sucked into the Breach. I am sick of feeling ashamed about what I am, and I'm sick of apologizing because it makes people uncomfortable. Because it’s inconvenient. I shouldn't have to, any more that you should be hated for the scar on your lip or the fact that you were born into a good family or the fact that you could, at any moment, decide to start hacking other people to bits. I’m discreet and I respect people's secrets, ok? And look, I'm sorry, but if that's not enough, then you can cram it in whatever hole your high-handedness occupies." I am markedly less than calm by the end.

“I didn't mean. . . ." His voice is quiet. Genuine. And so sincere that it chips away at my defensiveness. He sighs heavily. One of his hands clenches and unclenches briefly. “Nua, I'm not afraid _of_ you. Maker. I'm afraid  _for_ you. I worry after you.” It is like some sort of confession. “I don't know a thing about you, but I have come to care for you as a person. For everything that has happened to you, everything that has been asked, you haven’t complained once. You haven’t argued or fought or run, as you said. From the moment you opened your eyes, you have done nothing but help in every way you could. You are utterly remarkable. I'm not certain anyone could be _better_ suited to the role you find yourself in.” His countenance darkens, sobers. “I have seen what can happen when a leader takes on too much, and you are so _young.”_

I narrow my eyes. Why does he keep saying that? “I’m not _young,_ Commander. I’m--"

“Cullen.”

“What?” I snap, thrown off by yet another sharp turn in the conversation. Maybe he’s better than I thought. He isn’t. But it is technically possible.

“Please call me Cullen, if you would.”

I eye him carefully. “. . .Maybe,” I say slowly. Tightly, I start again. “I’m not young. I’m not a teenager, I don't care what I look like. I don’t remember how old I was, but I know I was at _least_ as old as you, probably more. And I’m fairly certain that this body is much older than it looks.”

"Body?”

“We don’t have elves where I’m from,” I say, some of the ire leaving my voice. “We never have.”

“. . . What _do_ you have?” he asks slowly.

“I can’t. . . I don’t want to talk about it. Not yet. Wait until I get back to Haven. But Fen. . . do you remember how I told you about all the things I can do? Heightened senses and so forth?”

“Of course.” ‘Because in what universe could I forget?’ it seems like he doesn’t say.

“This is more I don’t want to talk about until I’m back in Haven, but. . .” I pause, considering how to say it. “I don’t _remember_ training in combat, right? But my body does. It’s the same with my magic, and I know an ex-templar is the last person who wants to hear this, but I don’t remember it. I just _know_ it. Like breathing, like walking, like the beat of my heart. That's how I _know_ I know Fen. My mind doesn’t recognize him, but to the rest of me, he’s as close as my own skin. I dreamed while I was asleep, after trying to close the Breach. The clearest, longest one was about him. It was a memory, and in it, I was with him, and we were very close.”

“Dreams can be crafted easily enough,” he says darkly.

I narrow my eyes at him. “As I said, I know that. Why would he train me to be stronger, faster, and more skilled in the Fade if he just wanted to turn on me later?”

“Why would a creature burn the anchor into you?”

I don’t have an answer for that. “Just. . . there will be more to explain when I get back to Haven,” I reiterate. “A lot more. I’ll be able to answer questions, and things that don’t make sense now will make sense then.

“I know you don’t know me. Being a former templar, I’m probably just about your worst nightmare,” I regret my phrasing instantly, “and I hate that. But just. . . can you try to suspend your disbelief until then? If you don’t all trust me after that, if you don’t want to give me the benefit of the doubt, you can. . . I don’t know, find some way to lock me up and just haul me around in a cart to close Rifts. Leave the world-altering decisions to the professionals.”

“None of us want to imprison you,” he says, as if I'm daft and confusing for even joking about it. “In all honesty. . .” he looks wildly uncomfortable. “At the moment, I'm more concerned for your safety than anything. We cannot afford to lose you.” It is graceful and seamless, but he tacked that last sentence onto the end at the last moment.

“I'm not sure anything  _can_ hurt me, Cullen,” I say, my voice gentle satin. A wash of that same scent I don’t recognize comes from him. “But I appreciate it. I know you’re an adviser to the Inquisition, and it’s your job to worry over the safety of the world’s salvation," I phrase carefully. "That’s not even considering the fact that you apparently so miss being an older brother.” My words are kind. Plausible. Logical. Inside, something is turning to iron. 

Fen’harel had been right: I have a soft spot for Cullen. There is no other reason I should be so angered and annoyed and, if I'm being honest, hurt by all of this. It isn’t like me to have missed something so obvious. It leaves me with a sense of disquiet not unlike nausea.

Cullen huffs a quiet laugh. “Thank you. I hope I haven't overstepped too egregiously.” His smile is far more warm than I likely deserve. The skin at the corners of his eyes is crinkled, and it twists some god-forsaken thing in my chest so hard that I almost take the fabric of my tunic in a fist.

I shrug lightly and look off into the woods. “Better to overstep than to leave something important unsaid. Me having a temper doesn’t change that, and I'm sure you're used to dealing with worse. Annoyed as I am, in fact, it makes me respect you more for speaking your mind. You’re a good man, and a very strong one. You take your duty seriously. You genuinely care. There was no one better Cassandra could have chosen.”

He is quiet for too long, and I am meticulously careful to focus on the scent of pine and sap and loam.

“Thank you,” he says eventually. His voice is. . . soft. “. . . How are things progressing in the Hinterlands?”

“I thought you were getting reports,” I say, the bitter undertone in my voice clear.

“We are," he hedges at my demeanor, "but only from Cassandra’s team. Scouts are keeping us updated on your location, but they provide little detail.”

I grunt quietly in acknowledgement. “We’ll rejoin her group tomorrow, as I said. Elden will be off--”

“Leliana has an assignment for Solas, as well,” he interrupts, a knowing but perfectly concealed tone in his voice. “If you can tolerate another loss. Sorry to interrupt, but I didn't want to forget.”

“I’ll try to console myself,” I reply wryly, careful not to react with too much interest. “As it is, the time without him has been positively torturous," I deadpan. "We’ll have plenty in the group without them, and we’re almost done with what the soldiers can’t take care of, anyway. Or shouldn't. Frankly I could be doing everything the group is on my own, and much faster. But I have a part to play, I suppose. It's just frustrating knowing how much more I could be doing." I look down. "I haven't told anyone else that. But I figured you'd understand." I pause. "We’ll get Dennet recruited, cycle through the Rifts I left in the northern part of the region, take down a dragon in the east, then--”

“A dragon?”

“Yyyes. Perhaps you’ve heard of them? Large scaly creatures, big wings, notoriously bad tempers, spit fire at you? Well, this one does, anyway. I'm given to understand they're somewhat infamous in your world.”

He holds his hands up. “Wait. Wait. You’re planning to attack a _high dragon?”_

“Are we sure it’s _me_ who doesn’t speak Common?”

“Prophet, this--” He stops, collects himself, and looks at me, appraising. He’s obviously biting his tongue about something. Several somethings.

I arch a brow at him. It is only mildly challenging.

“Are you. . . as prepared for the fight as you can be?” He asks carefully. His voice is a little tight. It sounds almost annoyed. Smells it, too, but it doesn't seem directed at me.

“I know everything about her. I know the terrain, the area, I know how she’ll fight, I know she has about a million and twenty of her children with her. I also know I have a Qunari with me who is going to be so excited about it that. . . well, he’ll be _excited._ About it. He’d probably work for free if I told him how many dragon’s he’s going to get to kill. Speaking of, is that drink I asked Josie for in yet?”

Cullen arches a brow, no doubt at the familiar moniker. “I can ask, if you’d like.”

“You could. But that would subject to the horrors of being awake in the Fade again.”

“I'm finding the scenery unrivaled so far," he says with a grin, "and I have to admit I wouldn't hate seeing more of where you come from. Then again, I could simply have Lady Montilyet speak with you herself.”

“And deprive you of my company? I am not nearly so cruel. Besides, how else will you check I haven’t been eviscerated by a falling branch or crushed to death by the next stiff breeze? You must have been insufferable as a child.”

“That isn’t funny.”

“It’s hilarious. I’m hilarious.”

“Maker,” he mutters, rubbing his forehead with one hand. I can’t keep the grin from my face. I feel suddenly lighter.

“Have her track down some really good Tevinter red, too. Please. Not much, maybe. . . three bottles? Five? I have no idea how much he drinks. Say five. No, seven. He can ration them if he has to. I doubt he'll be expecting anything so civilized down here, so anything should be a treat. Many, many more later, though. Probably casks, to be safe," I say half to myself.

"He?"

"Another companion. Loves good books, good wine, interesting magical theory and good. . . scenery. He'll like you." It is an effort to keep from grinning. "He won't be joining us for a bit yet, though. After Val Royeaux."

"Naturally."

“. . .Did you just make a _joke?"_ I ask, delighted.

"I am capable from time to time."

I laugh, I can't help it, and his smile grows until I swear it is emanating light.

"How are things in Haven?” I only ask to be polite, and because, if I’m being honest, despite my ire and upset, I’m suddenly not eager for the conversation to end. When he's not being a bossy shit, there's something about him that's almost comforting. Like I can be calm around him in a way I can't around others. I want to know why, but it's something to look at on my own. What I really want to ask him is, 'Do you really not hate me? Are you sure this isn't some sort of trick?' But I am not, in fact, sixteen, and it's really none of my business. Then I remember the dalish situation and realize that my question was more serious than I intended.

“Well enough.” He sounds beleaguered in the extreme. “We got 328 more dalish yesterday. They all came together in a single group. The one that arrived before them came together, as well. I'm wondering if their clans aren't much, much larger than anyone has guessed. We could predict how soon more will be arriving and in what numbers, make plans, but every one of them refuses to speak with us. All they say is that they’ll speak only to ‘the Daughter of the Creators, you filthy shem.’ I'm paraphrasing. But it's accurate paraphrasing.”

I purse my lips.

“I’m hoping Elden will be able to get something out of them."

"There's a dalish elf in the Bull's Chargers, too. An archer. She'd help if you asked. Her name's easy to remember, she just goes by 'Dalish.'"

He nods. "The company arrived not along ago. I'll speak with her personally in the morning. If that doesn't work, it's another week until Elden can get back, and Maker knows how many more will have arrived. We have planners working on where to place them, but the simple fact is there isn’t room for as many as you estimate will be coming. We’re trying to figure out what to do, but at the moment. . . we’re at a loss.”

If I could just talk to--

“Cullen,” I say sharply, an idea occurring to me. He looks up, then becomes curious at the light in my eyes. “Have you tried to meet with them personally? I mean, have you talked to someone who could represent them? Could you tell me about them? What they look like, how they seem, that kind of thing?”

He makes a considering noise. “I spoke to a small group today who seemed to be representing the rest of them for now, but I couldn’t tell you much about any of them. Small builds, long ears, tattooes, staves.”

“If you can get me some detail on one of them, I might be able to find them like I’ve found you and the others, and talk to them. I could get you all the information you need and tell them to stop being twits. Around you, at least,” I add with a shrug. "Baby steps."

Life floods into Cullen’s eyes. He steps forward, unable to contain his excitement. His hands twitch like they want to reach out. “That would be _perfect._ Maker, if someone could _talk_ to them. I’ll get you everything I can tomorrow. I’ll have Josephine and Leliana come as well. Between the three of us, we should be able to paint you a good picture.”

I can’t help it - his excitement and relief are contagious, and I’m grinning before I realize it, staring into eyes only an inch or so higher than mine, and little more than a foot away.

Abruptly, he notices how close he is and steps back, further than he had been. His heart is hammering, his cheeks flushing subtly, and I have a sinking feeling of denial in my stomach.

“Uh. . . if you haven't," I say, don't spread the word that I speak Common, ok? I'd prefer people be surprised. Even our own people.

"I. . . suppose that’s everything, then?” I hedge. Suddenly, I cannot leave fast enough.

“Unless there’s anything else you need.”

I refuse to acknowledge the observation that a teeny, tiny, mostly buried part of him is hopeful.

“No,” I say a little too curtly, unsettled.

“. . . Until tomorrow night, then.”

“Goodnight, Cullen.” Abruptly, he is gone, back to his own dreams.

I back up into a tree and slide down it, burying my face in my arms where they rest on my knees. I know the instant Fen’harel is back.

“Not one word,” I manage, voice rough and muffled my my arms. “I will literally kill you if I feel one whisper of an ‘I told you so.’ And I need to stop losing my temper with you, I know that. I'm sorry, really. It's stupid and childish. I don't know what's wrong with me."

I expect him to approach, to touch me in some small way. We are almost always touching.

When I have given up on the idea, he moves forward and lays close, so just the tips of his outer coat are brushing me.

[You are as you should be.] There is something he doesn't say, but I don't know what.

 

* * * * *

 

_14 WM/Ver_

_Trip to the Arbor Wilds is go._

_Last night was a shitfest. I really miss sleeping at night._

_Conclusion on Envy: kill it._

_Complications: I need enough time to get to the temple and back, because I need adviser help deciding between mages and templars, if I have to._

_That the templars will want to join after they see the truth of their commander is a given, so if I have to choose a faction, I may need to be ready to tell them they can't join. Collecting both as I want to will be more difficult - we'll have to leave immediately for Redcliffe and just. . . hope for the best. A strategy I don't think I like._

_Annoying thing? The first_ _thought I had after thinking abou turning down the templars was how disappointed Cu. would be, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a deterrent. I need to figure out if there was something I did wrong._

_It would help if part of me didn't keep worrying over what would happen if I got sucked back to wherever I came from. I "know" this wasn't a fluke. I "know" my being brought here was intelligent design, and it makes sense to let me see this through if whatever it was went to the trouble. But I also know that surprises happen, and plans are sometimes hidden._

_Envy got F. and I talking last night about_ _time and the mutability of “fate.” I told him: I’m here, I know what I know, so I’m going to use it. If time is a fragile egg and it wants to break, just me being here would have been more than enough for that to happen. Maybe that’s short-sighted. Idk, but it FEELS like the right choice. Whatever that means._

_I told him something like, “In the bigger picture, does it matter? No. But I’m not in the bigger picture. I’m right here, right now, on the ground. If the choice is mine to make, I’m making it.”_

_Of course he asked me what if I make things worse?_

_'I'm not you. If I screw everything up, I'll try to learn from the advice I wish you would take about your pain and the decisions you make trying to cope. I’ll understand that I did the best I could and that I acted in accordance with my nature, and since I’m not god, I literally could not have done any better. It's just as likely to me that maybe that would mean that things are SUPPOSED to be screwed up.'_

_Everything only leads me to questions, and each answer immediately has a hundred little question babies. I think I'd be that way without all this "adventure" piled on top. But t_ _hings like this make me wish I knew MORE. Which is just. . . no. It reminds me how sometimes, getting things can only make us want more of them. You get money, you become more aware of how much money you DON'T have. You get famous, you become more aware of how famous OTHER people are. Things like that.  You scratch the itch and that only makes it worse._

_We're weird. People are weird._

_'We act. Then we do better the next time. I won’t blame myself for trying. If I was going to, if I believed that and took it to its logical conclusion, the only real decision would be to kill myself so I couldn't influence anything. But even that wouldn't work - death creates ripples, too. We’re not gods. I’ll carry on, I’ll find some way to forgive myself, eventually, hopefully, and I’ll try to do better. As long as I understand that, at the end of the day, I'm not in control. . . I should be ok. Hopefully.'_

_I wish he would listen. Just thinking about him hurts._ _But I need to be nicer to him, too. I don't know what the hell was up my ass last night, it was like someone lit a burner under me._

 _Off to things I have to pretend are adventure now, instead of the reality of biting my tongue while they take five hundred years to hack their way through whatever they're fighting. It's like watching a kid try to learn something and having to hold yourself back from correcting them or just doing it for them. Except they're not kids, and there's no way for them to get as good as I am._  
  
_One of these days, I may just sneak away and kill three days' worth of enemies in an hour. If they're all dead, no one can tell on me, right?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: I know "ar lath ma" is generally considered "I love you," but elvhen was such a fluid language, a language of intent at LEAST as much as spoken word that, with that, and the fact that Solas' confession on the balcony in the game is subtitled "Ar lath, ma vhenan," rather than "Ar lath ma, vhenan," well... I took a liberty.
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> 8/22/17 Changes to the conversation with Cullen because it kind of sucked. Added stuff, nothing life-altering.  
> 9/22/17: More changes to above. He was too... simpering? Something. I don't think some of the edits are very seamless, but it's past my bedtime, which means I'm sloppy.  
> 10/12/17: To account for Nua's reduced age, changed stuff so Cullen was more in character/less of a pedo. There'll probably be conflicting things in future chapters until I get to them.


	19. Beasts

“Varric, are you attracted to me?” I ask out of the blue. We've been on the road for maybe a half hour. As usual, they let me ride in back. Later today, we'll rejoin the others. I find I'm excited, despite the fact that it means rejoining Solas, too. But then, hopefully he'll be paring away from the group soon, at least for a while.

He sputters. “Excuse me?”

“I thought I was good at reading people,” I say absently, a thoughtful frown on my face. “But it turns out someone was attracted to me, and I missed it.”

“Observer bias,” Bull says conversationally.

“What?”

“Observer bias. I’m guessing you’d rather this person _not_ have a thing for you?”

I shift in my saddle, rolling one shoulder a little. “Well. . . it’s not exactly convenient.”

He grunts in assent. “You didn’t want it to be true so much that you overlooked the signs. Or if you saw them, you made excuses for them. It happens a lot to Ben-Hassrath agents when they’re green. Didn’t to me, but then, I’ve always been good,” he growls.

“Excuse me?” I ask coldly.

“I’m not saying you’re green, Boss. But you’re not exactly working with a full deck either, right? You don’t have your memories. A slip was bound to happen sooner or later.”

“Yeah but that's what bothers me. If I missed that, what else am I missing?”

“Just keep me with you. You’ll be fine,” he assures.

“'All the better to send detailed reports on you and make sure I’m indispensable, my dear?'”

“See? You’ve got the right skills. Maybe you’re just rusty.”

“Rusty my ass,” I mutter, glaring at the back of his head. “I don’t like you,” I say.

He laughs. “Please. You adore me. I don't blame you, I'm pretty awesome.”

Suddenly I wish I needed to wear shoes, because I very much want to throw something at his stupid, bald head.

“You two shouldn’t ride in front anymore,” Cole says in a worried voice. “Or. . . maybe just wear helmets,” he adds thoughtfully.

“Where did that come from, Kid?” Varric asks.

“Nua. She wants--”

 _”Thank you,_ Cole,” I say in a sharp-bright voice, “thank you. Don’t want to make the poor Qunari any more afraid than we already have,” I say.

“. . . Ok,” he says.

“I’m not _afraid,”_ Bull growls. “It’s just not natural.”

 _“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,”_ I say in English.

“But The Iron Bull isn’t a lady,” Cole says, confused.

I put a face in my hand. “It was a joke, Cole.”

“But now you want to see him in a dress.”

I am actually mortified, then, and I feel my cheeks heat. “Do you fault people for their dreams too? I am not responsible for the random shit that flashes through my brain.”

“I wasn’t faulting you,” he says, confused again. “Why would I do that? You think it would be funny." He pauses. "Your blush doesn’t show, you don't have to worry. It never does. He made you that way. But you can turn it on if you want.”

I close my eyes and take a breath.

“. . . I’m saying too much,” Cole observes.

“Thank you, darling,” I reply.

“Don’t look at _me,_ Tiny,” Varric says under his breath. “I have no Maker-forsaken idea.”

 

* * * * *

 

We’re riding in a line. I’m leaned back, laying with my arms under my head, feeling the twitching movement of Charles’ - I named him this morning - walk and listening to his steady breaths and the shift of earth under his feet. I imagine being at sea must feel similar. Charles’ steps are quieter than the horses I know and his movements are more sinuous, but the familiarity is still there. These horses don’t get shoed, though I’m told that in Antiva charms are sometimes attached around their ankles, small bells that tinkle as they walk.

I’m watching a stormfront in the distance. Gray, billowing clouds are lit from within, like a thunderstorm in reverse. There is a column of rain in the otherwise clear sky, a massive angled column that almost looks made of fog.

“Adnraste's ass, doesn’t that _hurt?”_ Varric asks from behind me.

“Hmm?” I tilt my head back to look at him over Charles’ rump and the cat-like sway of his strong tail.

“The saddle. You know, jabbing into your back?”

“Oh. I mean, it’s not a spa chair, but I figure it’s a good stretch for my spine. That or it’s not, and I should move, but I can’t really tell because. . . well. You know.”

“Yeah, let me know when you figure out how to bottle that whole 'immune to pain' thing. I know a guy. You could retire in six months.”

“Nah. It’s overrated. Not feeling pain, I mean.”

“Tell that to my last stubbed toe.”

“Which you wouldn’t have noticed if it hadn’t hurt, right?” Bull rumbles helpfully from ahead of me. “Which means you probably would have made it worse instead of being careful with it until it got a chance to heal.”

“Eh.”

“Pain can be nasty shit," Bull allows. "But you don’t realize how much it does for you until you really think about it. When you get too hot, it makes you sweat. So you don’t die. When you’re hungry, it makes your stomach hurt. So you don’t die. When your harmless little stumble is actually a sprained ankle or a broken bone, it tells you to go to a healer. So you don’t eventually die, or become a cripple. Nasty shit, but useful, like I said."

"Do you have any idea how annoying it is traveling with two insufferable know-it-alls?"

"Please," I say. "We're delightful. Besides, you hung out with Aveline, Fenris, and Anders for ten years. Maferath's chapped asscheeks, you put up with Carver for months. We should be a walk in the damn park. Besides, Solas is the group's designated insufferable know-it-all, and I don't think he'd appreciate you handing out that hard-won title to just anyone."

He chuckles, not an entirely happy sound. "Compared to Junior, even the _Seeker_  is almost delightful."

“That was pretty good, Boss," Bull says. "Nice and irreverent."

"Thank you. I've been practicing. I'd never say anything like that around Cassandra, but it's good to have in my back pocket."

"Yeah. I've been meaning to ask, how does that work with you, anyway? The pain thing.”

“Not feeling it, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh well I’m actually learning to. Feel it. Sort of. It just doesn’t. . . hurt. Does that make sense?”

“Nnnnno. No, it doesn’t.”

I sit up effortlessly, which earns me an appreciative look from the Qunari. Varric is writing something in a small, thick notebook.

“When you break it down,” I say, “all we really feel are different kinds of sensations, right? We call them good or bad based on how they make us feel. You should understand with what you do in your spare time, the way one can bleed into the other. Pain is the same - just a sensation. Its job is to be ‘nasty shit,’ like you said. ‘Hey, body, our hand is in a fucking fire, pull it out so our flesh stops charring and this horrible feeling I’m giving you can go away.’ It makes us stop the thing that’s damaging the body as fast as possible.

“It’s like how we feel good when we eat or drink or lay down when we’re super tired. It’s why the hungrier we are, the better everything tastes. It’s also why orgasms feel so good.” When he turns around and looks at me again, I wink. “That’s my considering my audience,” I grin. His chest swells with a silent laugh.

“Our brain has us pretty well trained to take care of our bodies. It drives us toward things that are good for us and away from things that will hurt us. It’s why sugar and fat taste so good but rotten food makes us sick just looking at it. It’s why we’re attracted to healthy, pretty people, but not sickly, 'ugly' ones. Everything we find hot can be broken down into indicators about how strong the babies we make will be and how well we can take care of them, because apparently, that's the whole point of life, at least biologically: make more life.

“I feel the sensation when something hurts. It’s just not that ‘oh, fuck, this is the worst thing ever’ feeling. I get to choose whether or not to jerk my hand out of the fire instead of my body just doing it for me. So far, my reflexes have been fast enough that it hasn’t been a problem.”

“. . .If you were a Qunari, the Tamassrans would have you breeding like you wouldn’t believe.”

“What?” Varric asks with a laugh that almost sounds scandalized.

“Uh. . . thank you?” I say uncertainly. “You should design recruitment posters. ‘Dream of the brood mare’s life? Join today!’” To Varric, I explain, “Qunari selectively breed the big gray ones from generation to generation. He meant if I was his species, not his religion. They don’t do it with dwarves or elves or humans.”

“Where’d you learn all of this, anyway?” Bull asks.

“I just know it. Same as everything else.”

“No, I mean all that other stuff about pain and pleasure and attraction.”

I hum thoughtfully. “I don’t think I did," I say slowly. "I think I always just. . . payed attention. That I was interested in the way the mind worked. So I picked things up as I went.”

Bull huffs a laugh and shakes his head. “You know, in another life, you would’ve made a hell of a re-educa--”

His voice is drowned out when I pick up a smell. Blood. It’s far from unusual here, but it’s something else that has me jumping up to a stand on the saddle and look into the distance. Charles jumps. Bull tenses, Varric just looks up curiously.

The blood is fresh. It's Elden’s.

I swear loudly and drop off Charles, yelling for the others to follow.

Grassland blurs around me and my braid slaps sharp against my bare arms in the wind. I leap over a hillock, a boulder, a startled ram, the hoofbeats of Varric's and Bull's horses fading quickly, their shouts nothing sounds in my push forward. Into the shadow of a shallow canyon created by lifts of rock, and finally, when I break through the other side, the pissed off roar of a bear, the tang and hush of magic as it curls up a staff and speeds away, Cassandra's shouting, stirred-up earth and crushed grasses and hasty footwork.

I break over a last hill and for one sloppy moment, I freeze, because what I see is _not_ a bear. It is three times too big to be a grizzly, its fur looks so thick as to be impenetrable and its jaw built to crush stone, and it has as much forward muscle as a mabari. One well-aimed swipe of a paw – larger than Iron Bull's head – would kill a horse if it hit right. After knocking it sideways into a tree and shattering its bones. Elden is down off to one side and not moving. Cassandra is leading the creature away from her.

I tear forward and leap onto the creature's back. I wrap my legs around as far as I can under its armpits, clamp down for dear life, and yank its head backwards by the eyelids to get its attention off Cassandra. She dives in and starts hacking its underside, but the only thing able to penetrate its fur is a straight-on stab. I see the world go slightly blue and feel one of Solas' barriers slide into place over me.

With a string of expletives, I wrap my arms as far around the creature’s massive neck as I can, then squeeze until I compress its fur and flesh enough to barely, barely join my fingers. It throws itself onto its back and rolls to dislodge me. I grunt, give a cry as it rises back to its hind legs, grit my teeth, and throw my head back, putting my entire body into it-- There’s a loud but muted _pop_ of bone, like a knuckle cracking but much louder. The creature goes limp and I throw myself off it as it falls.

I take in the area before it hits the earth with a _thump_ I feel in my fingertips – there is nothing else dangerous nearby, so I run to Elden so fast it would look like I teleported to anyone watching. As Bull and Varric dismount and run to us, Cassandra is saying something-- Dead. She’s saying Elden is dead. Denial to the point of fury rears up in me.

With the calm focus of a field surgeon, I am checking her pulse and breathing. I find neither. Her face is sliced open so savagely that I can see her teeth, and I fear she may lose an eye. More claw marks rake over her throat and down onto her upper chest. I can see muscle and bone.

Someone puts a hand on me, I don't know who, and I throw it off. I tilt Elden's head back carefully and start CPR. It is slick, bloody work until I realize I can seal off the gash in her cheek with magic, freeing up a spare hand.

 _Breath. Breath. Breath. Pump._ I am careful, so careful to be gentle, but I still hear the pop of ribs breaking away from the sternum and the crunch of fractures. A little is alright – if you're pushing hard enough to pump the heart, you're going to go through a rib or two.

This goes on for minutes. In a back space of my mind, I have the detached realization that in my old body, I would have run out of energy by now.

More time passes, and I begin to fear Elden is gone. Varric is murmuring something to someone.

“Prophet. . . .” Solas tries. His voice is gentle. Consoling.

With a growl, I hook a blade under Elden’s armor and shirt, slicing them through, realizing only after the fact that I have done it with a spectral blade, there and gone in a moment. I spare no thought for her modesty as I shove the gear and garments aside, exposing her chest and stomach. I place one hand above her left breast and the other on her right side below her armpit. I warn the others to step back and send a course of electricity – I can only guess at the appropriate voltage – streaming from my left palm, through her heart, to my right.

Nothing happens. I pause, then do it again, slightly increasing the power. Nothing. A third time. Nothing.

With a savage cry, I bring my fists down on her chest.

And it shoots upward, lifted by a ragged, gasping breath.

I fumble for a healing potion – I never use them – and pop the stopper out with a thumbnail as I bring it to her lips, putting an arm behind her back to hold her off the ground. She chokes on half of it, and most of the rest gushes out of her cheek and down onto her neck, but she gets enough down that I hear the muffled sounds of bone and flesh starting to knit. I reach for another potion, but Bull is already holding one out, crouched down on the other side of her. I tilt her head so the gash in her cheek faces up and pour the solution in more slowly. I heave a quiet sigh when the flesh of her face starts pulling together and her skin grows just a little less pallid.

A third potion, then I help her sit up, slow and gentle, and press my forehead to her shoulder. I am crying tearlessly and silently, and a corner of my mind worries that I'm so attached to anyone. I ignore it.

I pull back to look her over again, and that's when I see the others. Varric looks like he's trying very hard not to look bothered. Solas is rapt. Bull is a mask. Cassandra. . . .

“How did-- She was gone. How did you do that?”

I gently pass support of Elden to Bull, then pull her clothing shut and magic it back together. I fall onto my rear in the dirt. “Science,” I breathe. “I'll be happy to explain it later. First, what in the sanctified fuck is that thing?” I look with a jut of my chin to the small mountain of brown fur laying in a heap not far from us.

“A bear,” Iron Bull deadpans. “A bear whose neck you just snapped with your bare hands. No pun intended.” He sounds troubled, but I get the impression it’s not by how I killed the creature.

“. . . Your world is utterly terrifying,” I say. “That thing is like a bear the same way a kitten is like a Frostback red lion.* Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go get my horse.”

“We grabbed it when you took off,” Varric says. He seems almost wary.

“. . . I know. That was my excuse to get a minute alone.”

“Trouble, I’m pretty sure I speak for everyone when I say that right now, no one is going to try to stop you from doing anything. You walked away from what was basically a building slamming you into the ground and then falling on top of you, then snapped its neck like it was a twig.”

I sniff and stand, dusting myself off. I give a listen to Elden and hear her heart beating steadily. Her breathing is clear. As I pass, I glance at Bull, and I can almost see the gears in his mind spinning. His scent is unhelpful – it doesn't tell me anything that isn’t on his face. I think I should take it as a good sign that he's not trying to keep what he feels off his features, but I'm not certain I do. It’s either part of the act, some new plan. . . or he suspects how good my senses are.

 

* From the DA Wiki: "Red lions are usually longer than ten feet and typically weigh well over 600 pounds.” They are also frighteningly intelligent.

 

* * * * *

 

“So?” Varric asks as he slips out the door behind the Seeker. “Do we know the plan from here?”

“I--” She looks around and her eyes scrunch. “Where is the Prophet?”

“I believe I heard her mention something about the stables,” Solas offers. “She slipped out just after assuring the Horsemaster that his tasks were completed. Elden followed her.”

Cassandra heads toward them. “Come, then. We completed everything she sent us to do. What about your group?” She looks down at the dwarf.

“We finished everything, too,” Bull answers for him. “Didn’t get the impression we were headed back to base right away, though.”

“That is for the best. We received word that Elden and Solas are needed in Haven. They were to head out as soon as we regrouped, but I think it best Elden gets at least one night of rest before traveling, and it makes no sense for them to return separately. I still do not understand how. . . what the Prophet did to revive her.”

“She kept the heart moving physically while putting breath into her lungs,” Solas said. “The spell she cast was simple. She directed lightning from one palm to another, through the chest. I cannot claim to understand how that revived her.”

Bull grunts thoughtfully. “She has an anatomical understanding that could make our Tamassrans blush. I’d love to find out what else she can do.”

“They are your teachers, are they not?”

“That’s one of their jobs, yeah. ‘Tamassran’ is more a branch than a specific job. It's about as specific as calling someone a soldier. Lot of things fit under that umbrella.” They reach the stables and stop, as a one, at the sight that faces them. “What the hell is that?”

The Prophet is scratching the forehead of an animal in one of the stalls that _should_ be a horse, but isn’t. It is _massive,_ at least two or three hands taller than any normal horse, even those used by the Qunari. Its muzzle is more square and nearly without any taper, its head less curved and delicate, its ears more expressive. Its eyes are closing and its dark head leaning down toward her, like a toddler drifting off without meaning to.

A slight young woman with close-cropped hair strides out to meet them. “That’s an emerald courser,” she says in a half-whisper, eyes on the sight before them. “I’m Seanna, by the way. Good to meet you. I help my father with the horses. And I have never seen anything like that.”

“You run into that a lot around the Prophet,” Varric says wryly. His tone is low to match hers. “She’s got a thing for animals. They seem to have a thing for her, too.”

“I’ll say. I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but she’s not what I expected. Walked up, asked permission to go in and see the horses. _Permission._ From _me._ Greeted me friendly-like too, as if I was no lower than her.”

“She does seem pretty egalitarian,” Bull agrees. He too, speaks as if trying not to wake something.

“If anything, she likes peasants _more_ than nobles,” Varric adds, one hand absently scratching the pronounced corner of his jaw. “So what’s an emerald courser? Never heard of it. Or seen anything like it, for that matter.”

“You should see what’s inside the stall,” Seanna says conspiratorially. “You wouldn’t have heard of it though, not if you aren’t in steed husbandry. They’re an old breed, pretty much died out even before the Dales were sacked. Ancient Tevinter bred them, supposedly a cross between their horses and some ancient breed no one knows the name of. Some people even say they’ve got hart in them. You can see it in the eyes and the strong haunches. They were smart like the harts, too. Smarter.

“Supposedly Tevinter worked magic into their bloodline. They were about perfect. Brave, loyal, hardy, exceptionally long-lived. But they were also infamous for their tempers and willfulness. Unless they decided they liked you, they’d take your hand off soon as look at you. Breeders back then never got the recipe quite right, and when the emperium fell, they all but died out. They were called altu-something in Tevine, I can never remember. Dad could tell you. Name didn’t stick, anyway.”

“If they died out, how are we looking at one?” Cassandra asks.

“They got bred into just about everything else when they were around. You can see a little of their sturdiness and loyalty is in the dalish all-bred, _some_ of the spirit in those horses the Avvar like. There are even pieces in the chevalier’s steeds, though Orlesian breeders like to pretend that’s nothing but a tall tale.

“Every now and again, you get a horse with more dominant courser traits. The blood just doesn’t dilute the way it’s supposed to. Dad found one years ago, almost a perfect example of the original breed. He wanted to see if he could do better at crossing him with some horses here to weed out some of its worse qualities. He’d be an absolute legend if he could. A line of coursers without their temper would be unstoppable. Good as a mabari.

“This one here,” she nodded toward the animal who was now clearly leaning into the stall door to get closer to the Prophet’s hands, “he was a fluke. He’s still young, but you can already tell he’s even more of a blueprint for the breed than his sire. He’s an utter shit,” she remarks flatly. “Most of the stable hands won’t go near him. They’ll walk outside from one end of the building to the other before they’ll pass his stall, and we can’t keep other horses next to him. He's so big we had to knock out a wall between pens to make one with enough room for him, especially since we can't take him out to the field anymore. Dad’s the only one he'll even lets muck out his stall.” She sobers. “He killed two stable hands before we figured that out.”

“He _killed_ them?” Cassandra asks, aghast. She looks back at the Prophet with new appreciation and new trepidation.

“Aye. Crushed the foot of one. She didn’t last long after. The other. . . well. Marn didn’t listen well,” she says darkly. She offers no more, and no one seems inclined to ask for details.

“Will he be coming with Master Dennet?” The Prophet’s lilting voice asks loudly, startling the onlookers.

“Oh, no, your worship," Seanna calls back. "He’d tear the place up. You can’t work with him. Dad didn’t even bother to name him. Just took to calling him ‘the beast’ and it stuck.”

She turns around and the animal nudges her indelicately with his muzzle. Seanna nearly starts - that should have knocked her flat to the ground. “Is Dennet not fond of the him, then?”

“I wouldn’t say that, your worship. Dad may try to breed him, but he's impossible to break.”

The Prophet's lips thin. She looks at Seanna for a moment, then over her shoulder at the creature. “I don’t suppose you might sell him to me?”

Cassandra groans quietly, Varric nearly laughs. Bull raises an eyebrow.

“Didn’t you just _save_ me from a monster?" Elden asks. "If you're regretting the decision, I'm sure we could find another bear. Or perhaps a nest of dragonlings. No need to part with coin to get the job done."

“I may if you keep ribbing me like that,” the Prophet says sweetly. She turns back to Seanna. “I’m not saying it’ll be a cakewalk, but there’s something about him I like, and if he really is as difficult as you say, wouldn't it be good to be rid of him? I don’t have any coin, but I’d be willing to owe your father a favor. And as a supposed Seer, I can guarantee that’ll be priceless pretty soon.”

“You’d have to ask him, your worship. There’s no love lost between the two, but I can't promise anything. I’ll be honest, I’ve never seen him act so friendly toward anyone, but. . . he really is a lot of trouble. I wouldn’t give him to my worst enemy for twice his worth.”

The Prophet gives a smile, and it is as if the heavens open up and a singular ray of light shines down on her. “I’ll go and ask, then. Thank you again, Seanna.” She trods off, a more slight smile in place.

The young woman looks suddenly flushed. “I’ll just, er, see about getting you all outfitted with some better mounts, shall I? We can have your horses returned to Haven when ours get moved.”

“By all means,” Cassandra says, droll, “let them out to pasture. I think mine nearly died going up a hill yesterday.”

 

* * * * *

 

To no one’s surprise, Dennet agrees to part with “Beast,” once he is assured that the Prophet isn't an incompetent idiot. Rather vociferously, if she is to be believed - which, of course, tends to be most people’s inclination. If the party had been surprised by the horse’s head and neck, they are downright stymied by the rest of it.

His coat is a lustrous black that shines almost blue in the light. His mane is thicker and hangs much longer than a normal steed's. It trails back nearly all the way toward what would be the withers on a normal animal.

(“Uh, Boss, you know that thing’s going to be impossible to ride, don’t you?”

“Hmm?”

“The spine. When he runs, you’re going to be in for a hell of a bumpy ride. It'll curve when he runs, like a predator's. Prey animals have a straight spine, makes for a much smoother ride.”

“Oh, I know. But look at him when he moves. He has a natural dip near his neck. I figure if I stay there, I should be fine. Like riding a dragon.”

“. . .Yeah. Just like that. Wait. Wait. Can you actually do that?”)

The hair on Beast's back-end is similarly long and thick. It starts farther toward the body than usual and trails down the underside of a thick, muscular tail that is tuftless at the end. Varric makes fun of it. Until the creature, rather pointedly, it seems, plucks the dwarf’s favorite tankard from its tie on his pack and crushes it underfoot moments later, when the Prophet has her head turned.

His back is so broad, there is doubt about whether or not she can actually sit astride it comfortably and still be able to hold on when he runs. She simply points out that she is both strong and flexible, that it will be comfortable to sit cross-legged on, easy to stand on, and may even make it possible to nap comfortably while on the move. When Elden mentions the small fortune that will be needed for custom tack, the Prophet reiterates her general distaste for saddles.

The beast is more muscular than a regular horse and his teeth are more carnivore than herbivore, but, most unsettlingly, his legs are more canine than equine, and end in three large, padded toes, each tipped with a curved claw larger around than four fingers held together.

 

* * * * *

 

I am walking beside Beast - riding him is far out of the question yet - reaching up to scratch his neck and play with his mane absently while my mind wanders. I have put a spare shirt over his back. It's mostly a token, but it is a start in getting him used to having something there. If he takes to it well, I'll lay my sleeping roll over him.

I smell pollen and petals, sticks and stems and leaves. I smell tiny stones mixed into the soil and the hairs on a fly’s back. I smell a fennec in heat. The stink everyone else carries mostly doesn’t bother me anymore. Mostly. I try not to think about it too much, which helps - so much of discomfort is mental. Cole has very little scent at all, which is a godsend, but because the Maker hates me, Solas is, of course, the only “normal” one who doesn’t smell like a human cesspit. Bull, surprisingly, is almost tolerable without having to concentrate, and Elden comes in at a distant third. There is no hope for Cassandra or Varric. I simply remind myself that to them, it’s normal. Not even an issue.

Early morning moisture still clings deep in the soil. Cassandra has taken the lead again, with me behind her, trailed by, curiously, Solas and Elden side by side, then Varric and Cole. Bull caps the back.

My thoughts coalesce and I slow. Beast keeps an eye on me as I fall behind him. “Varric,” I say when he catches up to me.

“What can I do for you, Trouble?”

“I was thinking about what we were talking about last night while we were getting dinner.”

He gives me a covert look, clearly wondering if I’m going to spill my own secret. “And?” he hedges.

“Did you know that when clouds condense into raindrops, it makes a sound?” I ask rhetorically, borrowing from Fen’harel’s attempted warning the night before. At least someone could get some use out of it. I feel a ripple of muted surprise from Solas.

“Uh. . . I can’t say that I did, no.”

“Bee’s feet do too, when they walk on a flower’s petals. So does silk as it comes out of a spider. There’s a sound when a wound starts to close over and forms a scab. The cells in your body make sounds as they move.”

“Cells?”

“Tiny creatures, sort of. Every one of us is made up of trillions of them, cells and bacteria and viruses and god knows what else, all too small to see. They're how we heal and how we get sick and how we grow and age. We have machines in my world that let us look at them.”

Bull nudges his horse forward to listen, and I can feel Solas’ and Elden’s attention.

“Is this like how you talk to your clothing?” Varric asks dubiously.

“I can hear mites as they crawl through birds’ feathers, Varric,” I go on, ignoring his well-meaning jab. “Hairs as they grow and are shed. I can hear an eyelash fall and pick out the flakes of skin that come off of your arm when you scratch it. I can tell you what is in a mote of dust. There are colors you can’t see and sounds you can’t hear. You know, the way a mabari can hear those whistles that are so high-pitched that they’re soundless to you?”

“Qunari can hear them, too,” Bull rumbles conversationally.

I look back at him in surprise.

“We have decent senses,” he says with a shrug. “Though by the sound of it, they’re nothing compared to yours,” he says seriously.

I see I was right: he suspected my senses were better than I let on. Not quite as good as they are, perhaps, but certainly better than average. I turn back to Varric. “Every emotion has a smell, did you know that? So does moonlight. And illnesses that stay buried in a person for a decade or more before showing themselves. So do different kinds of rock and ore, and the growl of a stomach.”

By this time, Cassandra has fallen back, and our group now more closely resembles an amorphous blob than any kind of line.

“My point is, you’re a dwarf. So you live as a dwarf. With a mouth, skin, eyes and ears and a nose, limbs and hands and feet and a dwarf’s senses. Your people have senses no human or elf would understand. All those things exist to tell you what’s real and what isn’t. They give you pertinent information about the world. That’s the key word, ‘pertinent.’ But what nature considered pertinent to your existence when it made you is _nothing_ to what’s really out there. The world, and the sky that stretches beyond it, the trillions of other worlds and galaxies--”

“There are other worlds?” Cassandra asks. “Beyond this one? Beyond yours?”

“Of course. We have a very old quote where I come from, something like, ‘There are more things in heaven and earth than you can dream of.’ Technically it’s, ‘Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy,’ but I figured that wouldn’t get my point across as well. Anyway,” I say, turning back to Varric. “I know you didn’t mean any harm. That’s not really in your nature," I say simply, not bothering to assure him that his 'secret' is safe.

“I also know I do and say a lot of things that seem absolutely crazy to you. The point I’m making is that just because you can’t understand them, Varric, just because they seem _too_ outlandish, doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t objectively real.

“‘Asit tal-eb,’ I quoted. “Did you hear that when the Qunari were in Kirkwall? It means ‘I am what I am. You are what you are.’ Different. Not better, not worse, just different. Like some people are tone deaf, like some people are brilliant, like some people have brown eyes and some people are submissive, some are gay and some like sour things and some have two left feet. Because they are what they are, they can do and see different things. You see mountains, Varric. I see mountains in a grain of sand.”

“Are you quoting the Body Canto?” Bull ask in genuine surprise.

I smile over my shoulder. “It’s a beautiful line, at the end,” I say. “So is ‘Meraad astaarit, meraad itwasit, aban aqun.’ I probably butchered the pronunciation, sorry. The Soul Canto is my favorite, though. It’s just. . . exquisite,” I breathed.

“You cannot be serious,” Solas says.

“And yet I am,” I say, that snap in my voice that seems to be reserved exclusively for him. I return to Bull, demeanor changing utterly. “A lot of the things in the Qun, the more philosophical points, anway, remind me of some of the oldest religious teachings from my world. I’m surprised Meraad isn’t a title in the Tamassran order. Well. . . assuming it isn’t, anyway.”

“What are you talking about?” Elden asked, measured. She is still next to Solas. Had the two of them. . . No. No, not a chance. I laugh quietly at myself for the very idea. Solas is almost as much of an anti-shemlen-"mingling" snob as Fen'harel.

“It’s from one of our core teachings,” Bull explains. He is looking at me seriously and with a new appreciation. “It means ‘The tide rises, the tide falls, but the sea is changeless. Meraad means ‘tide.’ It’s a central idea of the Qun, one of the few that every Qunari knows.”

“Can your people not read?” Elden asks.

“Oh, they can, sure. Everyone knows at least the basics.” I smell something that utterly belies his demeanor and voice. It’s almost defensive. I wonder if he knows that dalish purposely don’t teach their children to read. “But the Qun is _massive._ Priests study it their whole lives and still barely crack the surface. We learn what we need in order to fulfill our roles, and leave the rest to the experts.”

“You never get curious?” She asks.

“To be honest, not really, not about that kind of thing. Like I said, they teach us enough, and we all have volumes of our own tailored to what we need to know. It just. . . isn’t my job. I get to hit things.

“So Boss,” he goes on, “If you’re from another world, how do you know so much about the Qun?”

“Fuck if I know,” I say drily.

“Well see, the Qunari aren’t exactly the missionary type--”

“No,” Solas said flatly, “your people are more the ‘conquer, brainwash, and forcibly convert type.”

“And here is where I'm going to be done,” I say, moving forward to leave the group. “I don’t do religious debate.” Especially not with people whose opinions are already set in diamond. Beast moves away from me slightly as I near him but, I notice, glances over to make sure I haven’t gone far. He’s like a cat, a jaded human, and an angry street dog all in one.

“You cannot possibly agree with the way their people live,” Solas demands. He is almost incredulous, and certainly affronted.

“Can’t hear you,” I call back lightly, “on account of being done with the conversation!”

“What’s wrong with the way we do things, Solas?” Bull asks. It’s a harmless enough question, and seems mostly curious. Poor bastard.

“Aside from the fact that you have outlawed free will and independent thinking?” Solas replies, distaste and disdain saturating his voice.

“Dear god, you’ve gotten him started,” I moan quietly. That is when I encourage Beast to run ahead of the group with me. He has months of pent up energy to spend, anyway.

 

* * * * *

 

“Why, in the Maker’s” _swat!_ “name don’t these bastards go after you?” Varric grinds out. “And whose brilliant idea was it to camp near a swamp?”

“Solas’s,” I say blandly.

“I beg your pardon?” He actually sounds affronted. I have seen him immolate no fewer than sixty of the insects like some sort of area-of-effect bug zapper.

“It feels nice to scratch them,” Cole says helpfully. “And they’re not hungry anymore. I wish they wouldn’t bite my fingers, though. Or my face. But at least I don’t have any on my bottom. The Iron Bull has them on his--”

“Yeah,” I cut in as if bored to spare us all wherever that was going. I’m squinting because I think I can see a far-off galaxy in the sky above me. “You told me there would be great dreams here and that you’d love to camp nearby. There were stars in your eyes. It was adorable. How could I say no?”

To a one, every face turned a glare in his direction.

“I did no such thing!”

Bull has taken to fanning a clump of tall marsh grasses around him to keep the creatures away. It seems to help. Marginally.

“Nahhh I’m just screwing with you guys,” I say. The glares turn in my direction this time. “I don’t know whose idea it was,” I lie flawlessly, “And it’s probably best for morale that no one try to find out. And obviously the reason I don’t have as many bites as any of you because I’m cold and bitter.”

Varric snorts. Otherwise, this is met with silence, until Elden adds, voice dry, “Well they don’t seem to mind salty.”

A laugh forces its way past my sealed lips before I can stop it.

“Yeah, laugh it up, Prophet,” Varric says. “It’s easy to be in a good mood when you’re not a buffet for blood-sucking parasites. These aren’t bugs. They’re tiny, winged, biting monsters straight from the heart of the Void's darkest orifice.”

“How are you doing it?” Cassandra asks curiously. “Or is it simply some immunity?”

“Barrier,” I say around a berry I have stolen out of Elden’s bowl. She gives me a look that clearly says ‘Godsent or no, I dare you to try that again.’

“And is there a special reason you’re not sharing, or did you just decide you hate our guts in the last hour?” Bull asks testily. He has wrapped a bedroll around himself to try to get more coverage.

“I’m not a source of endless magical power here, Bull," I object. "That would take a lot of energy. Otherwise, Solas wouldn’t be getting as pockmarked as the rest of you.” Unless he’s holding back to downplay his magical ability. If so, his dedication to the lie is admirable. Being a feast for insects crosses a line in my mind.

A muscle in Cassandra’s jaw twitches as she slaps the side of her neck hard enough to leave a mark. Varric actually shoots me a covert glower.

My lips turn down in a suppressed grin, and I silently extend the barrier around the ring of the campfire, pushing all the bugs out as it goes.

“Andraste’s sweet pearly ass, Trouble, _thank you!”_

Cassandra seems too relieved to glower at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying something new.   
> -  
> I did a bunch of research, as I do, and it turns out that if a heart has well and truly stopped, shocking it will do nothing but cook the meat. This article sums up the concepts nicely. It's pretty interesting stuff.


	20. The Face Of The Sun

The rest of the day is uneventful travel - no bandits, no “bears,” no mages or templars. Just grasses and dirt trails and rocks and trees. I don’t know how any of them sit still for so long without getting blisters on their asses.

The only noteworthy report from either team about our time apart is the red lyrium mine - it is understandably alarming and ominous to everyone.

“You’re awfully quiet, Trouble,” Varric hedges. “Nothing to add?” His tone makes it clear he thinks the very idea is preposterous.

“Not at the moment,” I utter. ‘Not until my trip is over.’ He seems to get the message. Everyone but Bull, Elden, and Solas has been filled in about my plans by now.

“What about the lyrium?” Elden adds. “Any more deposits?”

“. . . Not at the moment.” Hopefully.

I explain CPR and the principles of defibrillation, with a warning not to just go around shooting lightning at everyone who falls unconscious. I also teach them the Heimlich; apparently if someone chokes in Thedas, it’s almost always a death sentence. So is a bad allergic reaction. Mothers die from infections after birth because doctors don’t know about washing hands or sterilizing tools and equipment. Without penicillin, even the simplest infection often turns deadly. Between all of that, improper nutrition, and the backbreaking work generally required every day just to survive, it isn’t unusual for many people Cullen’s age to be grandparents. Someone his age - I refuse to just think “he” - would see another ten or twenty years. More than that and they would be outliers. When I learn that, I suddenly realize I've only seen one elderly person since I've been in Thedas - an old woman living in Haven.

We touch on dysentery, which is a polite word for severe diarrhea. Apparently it claims about a third of infants, and I don’t know how many adults. And I'm told it was a bad problem in the Crossroads.

“Did you not notice the smell?” Cassandra asks, surprised.

I honestly don’t know how to answer that. I dart a glance at Solas, and though he looks utterly composed, I feel an echo of amusement from him.

I clear my throat. “Have them boil all their drinking water for ten minutes,” I tell Cassandra. “Hard boil, no less than ten minutes. That won’t fix the problem, but it should make a big difference.”

“Why?"

“Ask me to tell you more about germs when we get back to Haven. And don’t even get me started on your doctors. If I get sick, do  _not_  take me to one of them.”

Bull spends some time riding next to me, working with me on my reading. Between his size, his horse’s, and the fact that I’m walking, the interactions are almost comical. Blessedly, Common is more or less phonetic, and the alphabet not much larger than English’s. Aside from that and Varric and Bull sharing stories now and again, time stretches out like elastic. I don’t mind, but I can feel the boredom of some of the others. So can Cole. He does an admirable - and hilarious - job working on his small talk.

 

* * * * *

 

“There are so many of us that even most rare conditions have large pools to study," I explain. "And there are more brilliant minds to do that studying. Psychopaths, serial killers, pedophiles, abusers and rapists, saints, philanthropists, eccentric geniuses, master artists and musicians. Rare diseases and disorders. Innovations are an everyday occurrence. If you’re into something weird, no matter what it is, you’ll find like-minded people, especially because of this thing we have that lets us talk in real time to anyone, anywhere around the world. In writing, voices, or face to face, so to speak. I mean, not literally  _everyone_  has access to it, but all the developed nations do. Even better than that is a device nearly everyone carries that can instantly answer any question on any subject you could possibly think of.”

“It sounds like a utopia.” Solas says. I have to hide my surprise.

“It sounds like a mess, is what it sounds like,” Varric says.

“It is," I say, grateful for his gift for insight. "It is a mess, and that’s exactly why.”

“What’s exactly why?”

“‘Grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.’ Do you have that saying here?”

"Something like that," Bull nods. “People are good at wanting what they don’t have and bad at being happy with what they do.”

“Exactly! Is that a problem with the Qunari?”

I literally hear Solas gritting his teeth.

“Eh, well people are still people, but it isn’t nearly as bad under the Qun as I’ve seen everywhere else. Part of our training, the way we're raised, is basically learning to be where you are, who you are, doing what you’re doing, and to let that be enough. When you know who you are, what your place is, it’s easier. Out here where you’re getting pulled in ten different directions your whole life, it’s not so easy.”

"All the more to discourage ambition and free thinking," Solas says. "Better to have the choice.” Unfortunately, I’m a little impressed at the restraint in his tone.

“Sorry, Trouble, but I have to agree with Chuckles on this one. I’m pretty attached to free will.”

I shake my head. Curiously, instead of speaking up for his people, Bull looks at me. He smells musky, like earth and rock, and strangely absent. I remember how much the former Arishok in Kirkwall said “Explaining the Qun is not my role,” but Bull is hardly so straight-laced. Hissrad, maybe, but not The Iron Bull.

I arch a brow at him, to which he shrugs and indicates I should go for it. I shrug back and look at Varric.

“You hear things like ‘know your place’ and ‘fulfill your role’ and 'be satisfied with what you are,'" I explain, "and you think of something foisted on you without your permission. Like being stuck in a skin your whole life with no room to grow or change. An ill-fitting prison that you’re expected to be happy about. And if you’re not, or if you can’t pretend believably, you get spirited away and your brain gets scrubbed. But what if it was this: your role is rogue, businessman, storyteller and author, and general good person. If a little secretly.” I doubted the Qun diversified that much, but that was hardly the point. “Now what if your entire society was built around supporting and encouraging you in those endeavors?”

“Honestly? I’d be less likely to want to do them.”

I laugh. “Ok, ok, look I wasn’t saying it was the life for you. But you get my point, right?”

“Better to have to have the option of feeling lost than to have no choice in the matter,” Solas says.

I bite back a sigh. “It’s not a perfect system, and you’ll never hear me say it is. It's got some serious flaws. One of their trade-offs is people who feel trapped. Ours is people who feel lost. But neither side is immune to either of those. They don’t have homelessness there, Solas. Everyone has work, everyone is provided for. There are no slaves and no masters. The woman who weaves clothing is just as valued and respected as any one of the Triumverate. There’s no overpopulation or overcrowding, and the current generation is compassionate enough to not pass on disabling conditions to the next out of some stubborn belief that it's their right to do so. It has its upsides. Just like your freedom does.”

“Upsides?” He repeats, disbelieving and affronted. The anger and disgust rolling off of him are so strong I nearly hold my breath. “No one is homeless and everyone has work because anyone who does not fit the mold is turned into a mindless laborer, doomed to live out their life drooling in a quarry. Is that not slavery taken to the extreme? They do not pass on flaws, as you call them, because they cannot  _choose_  with whom to create a family. In fact, they cannot have families at all. They cannot choose who to love, who to marry.”

“. . . I'm surprised you would be so closed-minded," I say sincerely. "You’re just talking cultural semantics. People flee their society just like they flee this one, Solas. Just like they fled mind. Just like they have fled every society throughout time regardless of the consequences. My point is, every system has things it does well, and that doesn't change because you think that overall it's evil or ignorant. And even if it were, you can still learn something from it. Every way of life trades benefits for compromises, some are more extreme than others, and not everyone in the world is so hard-wired to need black-and-white, empirical freedom as you are. And you do _not_  want to get into a debate with me about societal evils, not when you deify ancient elves like you do," I say, my voice going sharp. "Those people were _horrific,_ and-- What-- Don't you look at me like that!"

"I am not looking at you at all."

"You know what I mean," I snap, my good humor evaporating. "I can admit that they did some things well in elvhenan. They did some things very well. They respected the world as it was, not as they wanted it to be, for instance, at least where spirits and the Fade were concerned. In other areas, they were genocidal lunatics with a severe racial superiority complex. Just because I wouldn’t want to live there, just because there are things I might not agree with, that doesn’t mean we can't learn things from it, that there was nothing for us to admire or respect. You're Mr. The-World-And-All-Morality-Are-Nothing-But-Gray-Areas, does that only apply when you want it to? There is no good and evil, remember? No black and white? Yes, some shades of gray are darker or lighter than others, but it’s all still just somewhere in the middle. Bad things can come from good and good things can come from bad, and that’s true for societies just like it is for people."

"You find something admirable in the madness and evil of Corypheus, then? In the fact that you are hunted every moment in the Fade? Or in the institution of masters and slaves? In a child starving in the street?"

"Ok, first of all, that is some serious trap phrasing, and second, of course I do! Frankly I'm shocked that you of all people would even ask something like that, like. . . who are you right now?"

I huff a breath and tick off on my fingers, "Strategy and the benefit of the ability to step away from emotional attachment, get back to me when I figure out what the hell is going on, insight into huma-- er, the nature of people, and. . . well, also insight into the nature of people, and information about where the society that let that child starve is going wrong and what needs to be fixed. But that's just off the top of my head. For god’s sake, Solas, you’re supposed to be curiosity embodied. The consummate learner. How are you supposed to pick anything up if you take one look at something and start hissing and spitting like a pissed off cat? I mean, I know you have your sore spots, we all do, and I know you're more inclined to prejudice and judgment than I am, but really? If you’d pull your head out and quit being so closed-minded for a minute, you might actually learn something even  _you_  don’t know.”

It is a long time before he answers. The silence that weighs down is both thoughtful and awkward, but I am too annoyed and fed up to care. Finally, he says, “. . . Perhaps you are right.”

Were I in my old body, I might have tripped over my own feet.

I pause, then decide to take a victory where I can get it and just move on. “It’s something people strive for in my world, being satisfied,” I say, my tone considerably less passionate. “Because we have so much abundance that it’s almost impossible not to want more.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Elden says.

“No, I think I understand what she is saying,” Cassandra says. “I saw it in Nevarra, it was one of the things that turned me from the nobility. The wealthy only seek more wealth. Those who have power only seem to become more aware of the power of others, and work to gain more for themselves. For most people, the more they had, the more selfish they became.”

“Exactly,” I say. “Somewhere along the way, we lost the half-a-hair-thin balance between work and ease. We always want things to be easier. That’s not bad, it helps us survive, conserve energy. You see it all throughout nature. But energy isn’t a rare commodity anymore where I'm from. When you live in a world where the important things are almost impossible to get or hold on to, and everything else is handed to you without being asked, where if you do unnecessary work you’re looked at as odd, where things that hurt you in the end are the ones that are raised up as the ideal. . . well, we sort of live upside down. More material indulgences, less emotional richness. More poverty, more greed and corruption. More experiences and information, less satisfaction and learning. More connection, less love, less interaction, fewer meaningful relationships. Longer lives, less health.

“My world is  _not_  a utopia, but you could stick people in one and they’d still just be people. Generous, selfish, short-sighted, wise. Some will find heaven even in a back alley that smells like piss, others will find things to complain about in a paradise. Some want to skate by, others want to do their best. We may be overrun with miracles, but we’re still just people. Lost, confused and young, small, overconfident and spoiled - at least where I was from - more likely to get swept up by idiocy than listen to wisdom, and at the end of the day, deeply flawed. We choose entertainment over betterment. We have limitless resources, but our people are still starving. It's still always 'us versus them.' Physical prowess over education and art, profit and dogma over life-saving research, fear over reason, hoarding over helping.

“You have magic. We have science and technology. It's our version of magic. Take all the superficial things away, cultural differences, nutrition and vaccinations, things that don’t really define a  _person,_  and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between us.”

 

* * * * *

 

We stop for camp in the late afternoon to let Elden rest. Her complaints about it are the loudest I’ve heard her be, and probably more words than she usually utters in three days.

It’s my night to cook. By which I mean I feel like cooking; since I eat so little and take two thirds of the watch every night, I’m not part of the regular rotation, and no one is going to complain about a volunteer. With my sense of smell, the food I make is becoming more passable with every attempt. To my tastes, it’s less horrifying than everyone’s cooking but Elden’s. She learned to cook “shem” food long ago, apparently, but knows dozens of dalish recipes. She promises to make one for me the next time she can - she says humans prefer their food much more bland, and she doesn’t have access to most of the spices she grew up with.

I can’t relate. Even dried meat and stale bread explodes with dozens of flavors when I put them in my mouth. Unfortunately, all that usually means is that what’s disgusting to the others is dozens of times more disgusting to me. It lends itself well, though - I learned early on that, counterintuitively, my body is very aware of a given food’s shelf life. The others can eat meat that’s much older than I can without getting sick, and consider scavenged fruit appealing far longer than I do.

Varric brings down two nugs in not five minutes, and Bull is the one helping me skin today. Since I’ve gotten plenty of practice in such a short time and am, in general, skilled with knives and other creatures’ anatomy, I’m getting good enough that his corrections are minimal. I gut the animals and magic the innards away to some kind of scavenging rodent that’s been snuffing around far outside the wards Solas set up.

I leave Bull to butcher it - something I don’t need to be taught, apparently - and go to gather herbs. Whatever smells like it will go with the meat and the few roots we gathered during the day’s travel, I collect and bring back. Solas checks to make sure I haven’t claimed anything that will make us all vomit horribly later and, with Elden, teaches me the names and properties of the ones I don’t know. I manage to be almost polite to him, civil certainly, the entire time. The relief I feel being around his ara'lin only makes it more difficult. He offers to start teaching me potion-making, and since I don’t know anyone else who I’ll have such regular access to who knows the craft, I tentatively and churlishly accept.

I’ve set the stew over coals at the outside of the fire, covered it, and wrapped it in a bedroll, which I enchanted to be fireproof. It will take hours to cook this way, but it’s early yet. A late dinner won’t kill anyone, and the meat should be almost decadently tender when it’s done. Bull complains it won’t cook right, to which I reply that when it’s his turn to make the meal, he can char the meat to wood pulp and old shoe leather all he likes, and honestly, how is  _he_  the one who doesn’t like his meat cooked to less than brickette form?

(“I’m huge, deadly, badass, smart, and a great lay, Boss. Not a savage.”

“No, what you are is someone who has the palate of a goat with a head cold and a burned tongue. Surprising, given how much subtlety you display in other areas. And if you don’t watch yourself, I’m going to start thinking you’re dropping hints about your skill in bed.”

It annoys Solas when I seem too chummy with Bull and damn near lights him on fire when I flirt with the giant man. So I go out of my way to spend every minute I can with him. Oddly, Elden is never happy about it, either.)

After the others have tended to their gear, Varric starts up a card game. I refuse to play until I have a grasp of the rules, but in honesty it’s just a good excuse to be with them and have less attention than normal paid to me.

I feed sweetgrass to Beast and talk to him in a low voice, almost always in English. It’s more private that way. He lets me rest my forehead against his muzzle. It only lasts a moment before he’s shoving it off with a toss of his head, but it’s progress. He tolerates me engraving some of his “nails,” too, and watches curiously. I use magic to etch shallow, swirling patterns into the keratin, learning his body language and keeping up a stream of babble while I do. We figured out quickly that he doesn’t tolerate being looked in the eye by anyone but me, and that only sparingly. He literally went for Elden’s throat when she did it while trying to greet him. Which is how we, or more specifically I, when I tried to stop him, learned that he’s also freakishly strong.

I saw the intelligence in his eyes even before I had approached him at Dennet’s, but I’m quickly coming to suspect that he has an intellect that would give a mabari pause. Running with him today helped. It was a herd activity. I’ll eat with him, sleep with him, drink from the rivers I lead him to, anything I can until he figures out I’m maybe not too bad. If none of that works, I'll try. . . something I haven't figured out yet.

It’s a little astounding and a little sad that a horseman as skilled and sincere as Dennet hasn’t figured out that “breaking” a horse - a barbaric practice, but I understand the practical necessity of it - isn’t always the best way to go. “The Beast,” or just “Beast,” as we’re calling him, is more stubborn and willful than I am. You don’t break something like that - you gentle it. But then, I don’t stand to lose an investment or have my livelihood take a hit if he decides he’d sooner pee on my dinner than cooperate with me. Something about the focus and attention the task is demanding is satisfying down in the cracked parts of me. It’s a more of a relief to be speaking his inhuman language than I ever would have predicted. And because of him, I realize exactly how bored I’d been before he showed up.

Solas gives me my first lesson in potion-making, which is no more than how to properly harvest and mill elfroot. Apparently it’s very fussy how you go about it if you want the finished product to do anything, to do it well, or to have any kind of a shelf life. It’s dry and particular and meticulous work and I love it. He also teaches me - with pointers from the others - how to tell a good potion from a poor or fake one. It turns into a lesson in how to avoid being swindled in general. I can smell lies and ill intent on people, but I haven't shared that information, and it’s still a good skill to have, regardless.

It's the same reason I patch up torn clothing for practice when I could just magic it done - I wasn’t able to argue my way out of wearing gear or weapons, though I don’t need either, so they tend to be neglected. Cole works with me at lockpicking on a practice lock Varric picked up in the Crossroads, and I grill Cassandra and Elden on how to do simple things without magic. Basic and feminine hygiene, grooming and cosmetics, what vendors to seek out for what goods, birth control, things like that.

This leads to a Q & A about where I come from, which is fun right up until Bull asks increasingly specific questions about espionage and warfare and I tell him we have a weapon that can kill millions of people at once under the right conditions. This leads to an understandably horrified silence.

Bull is not pleased to hear that we have been using “Gatlok” for over a thousand years, but I assure him I will die before I help the people of this world get any better at killing one another.

“You don’t think it makes sense for us to have equal advantage to defend ourselves?” Cassandra asks. Demands, more accurately.

“Yes. But the history of my world shows that equal advantage is little more than a hollow ideal and is always temporary. If the southern lands learn Gatlok, it motivates the Qunari to come up with something more deadly, which then spurs you to become more powerful in turn. That road doesn’t end. We call it the arms race, and invariably, it’s how you end up with a weapon that can wipe out a city in a matter of moments. My people are coming up with far worse as we speak.” I don’t dare tell them about germ warfare. Could they make an advanced form of it? No, not yet. But an idea like that doesn’t tend to go away once it has been born, and whereas someone will undoubtedly think of it on their own, I refuse to help it along.

“Fucking shems,” I hear Elden mutter to herself.

“Your ancestors were worse, Elden,” I say darkly. She looks up at me in surprise, but there’s something odd in the look, too.

I turn back to the others. “The men who built that weapon on my world didn’t do it to attack people. They did it because it was a war. Someone on the other side was trying to build it and they wanted to get there first. They made it to deter attack, but cut and dry, the end result was that it got built, and surprise of surprises, someone ended up using it. Over 2,000 times, in fact. Only twice for war, both times by the government who had created it first. The others have been for testing - almost every nation in the world has them now. But ask me how good those tests are for our planet as a whole. They leave mutations behind, poisons that linger for decades, probably hundreds of years. Just because you  _can_  do it doesn’t mean you should. The world isn't an equal place, and you won't make it that way by force.”

They ask me questions about people they know and current events and random pieces of history and the future. I can’t answer most of their peppered questions, but I’m grateful for anything that sends my mind roving. Splinters of my life, like hair-thin wood fibers, are coming together as the days pass. I can almost make out small pieces of the picture sometimes. Varric asks me if I know about this and that happening in Kirkwall, or this person in the Coterie or that bar owner, which leads to stories that have the others laughing, and no one seems to be disturbed when I jump in to add a detail here or there, as if they all forget that I wasn’t actually there for any of it. Or maybe they figure I as good as was. Varric asks me about nug racing until Cassandra looks like she’s ready to pitch him into the fire. She is comically mollified - to my eyes at least - when he tells me he’s making good progress with Swords and Shields. Elden can’t believe I would read it.

When we finally eat, I spend most of the meal openly staring Bull down. He doesn’t complain about the food once and, size notwithstanding, eats four times more than anyone else. I don’t work hard to hide how smug I am.

 

* * * * *

 

When Elden goes to wash that night, I make an excuse about supervising the invalid and follow after her. She’s grouched in front of a small creek with her shirt off when I catch up, bathing with a fragrant bundle of leaves she's tied together by what I can smell is a piece of cured sinew. I track the leaves to a nearby tree and pluck a few to use.

“How are you feeling?” I ask with feigned casualness when I have settled next to her.

She shrugs blithely. “Fine, honestly. Same as if it was any other scrap and I’d been healed good as new. Everyone’s just fussing because you brought me back from the dead. Frankly I’m glad I’m leaving tomorrow. I’m not sure how long their good manners will keep holding off the ‘what was it like?’ questions.”

“First of all, if you’d been dead, you would have stayed that way. You were more just. . . toying with the idea. Second. . . what  _was_  it like?” I ask, utterly unrepentant. “Was there anything? Light, blackness, visits from departed loved ones?”

She shrugs one shoulder as she finishes scrubbing under one arm. “Same as any other time I’ve been knocked out. It was just a nap.”

I nod to myself. “We have records on it where I come from. We call them near death experiences. Some people say there’s nothing, but most people say there’s something. A bright light in the distance that feels like home, a sense of peace and rightness, floating above their body. Some people who say that happened can even tell you about a conversation someone was having in another room because apparently they went wandering.”

“Seriously?” One side of her mouth is curled in disbelief. I laugh.

“That’s what they say. It’s the great unsolvable mystery, death. Well, that and the ocean. And the cosmos. But mostly, death. That’s the only one they figure science can’t give them an answer to, but who knows. We have a lot of open-minded people.” I pause. “To be fair, we just have a lot of people, period. That lends numbers to any minority.”

She just grunts quietly in reply, and then goes quiet for a time. “Doesn’t sound like something I’d do. Toying with the idea, I mean. I hardly even liked toys when I was a child. Or games. The adults gave me a nickname when I wasn’t four, it basically means ‘girl who is always serious.’ The other kids had a nickname for me, too. Wasn’t quite as nice, though.” She has a small grin on her face.

I have fun imagining that. Dour little Elden the pudgy toddler, waddling around and scowling at the other children for being too hyperactive.

“Extreme situations can bring out surprising things,” I say. “And for what it’s worth, I think you’re hilarious.”

A natural silence settles over us as we wash, and I look up at the moon, just a hair over half full. “You don’t seem too keen on The Iron Bull,” I say conversationally.

“I’m not.”

I smile to myself. What a world it would be if everyone was so blunt. “Any special reason?”

She sits down, making herself comfortable while her skin air dries. “He’s qunari. I tend to hate them on principal.”

“Aaany special reason?” I repeat.

I see her eyes leave us, going far distant. “You’ve never asked me about my tattoos. My clan. What I’m doing serving a shem Commander.” She says it as if expecting a deserved condemnation. I suppose if I were another dalish, I might feel obliged to give it.

“It’s not really my business, is it? I figured something like that would be pretty personal.”

She huffs a dry, quiet laugh. “If it’s not the business of the Prophet of the People, the daugher of Mythal and Elgar’nan, the living ancient sent to restore the dalish, I don’t know whose it would be.”

So she did know; she'd had the dream. It had been what I had followed her to ask about, anyway. “That’s not who I am, Elden.”

Her lips twist and she nods. “Ok.” ‘Sure it isn’t. Whatever you say.’

This is not an argument for right now. More odd is knowing that this was who she thought I was from the moment we met. Which just impressed me even more - she hadn’t held back during our fight in the training ring. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“What’s to say? You’ll decide I’m worthy or you won’t.”

“Worthy?” I repeat, failing to hide how appalled I am at the very idea.

She shrugs. “I’ve hardly kept to the ways. I could have found another clan. Instead, I took up with the shems. I serve them. Well, I took up with  _Cullen._  He’s worth following. So are you.”

“. . . What happened? To your clan?”

She stretches an arm out before her and gazes at it in the moonlight. “Ever wonder why I’m so dark?”

“Yes, actually. I mean I assumed you were from the north, but I always thought the dalish kept pretty much to the southern continent.”

“Mostly they do, but there are clans in the north. Mine was one.” She stops and slips back into her shirt. “The Qunari wiped us out. Down to the last infant.”

I go still.

“We stayed out of the southern continent for the most part, but we ran into trouble with the shems and had to range farther north than we preferred. We got too close to the fighting in Seheron. One of their elven converts infiltrated us, a dalish. He traveled with us, convinced us it was safe to camp closer to his people. At first I think he was there to keep us  _away_  from the fighting, to be honest, but I’ll never know.

“Then something changed, and the mission became conversion. To save us from ourselves. You seem to know about the Qunari. You can probably guess how well that went. What happened after we refused the voluntary path.

“I lost my mother and father, three aunts, one uncle, three grandparents, my great-grandfather, twelve cousins, a betrothed who had been my lover for three years, a best friend, my Keeper and my First, two hundred and twenty three clansmen, and five siblings. People I’d known all my life. My sister was the youngest in my family. She wasn’t two. I was the only survivor, and that just by the skin of my teeth.”

“Jesus,” I breathed.

“That was more than two years ago. I wandered for a while. Tried to take up with two other clans, but I just. . . kept having flashbacks. I couldn’t stay. I made life too hard on them. Or maybe that was just an excuse I gave myself.

“I felt like I’d doom them if I stayed, like I carried all that death with me somehow. Then when I was traveling near the northern Frostbacks, I overheard a shem commander chewing out some of his men while they passed through the woods. Funniest thing, it wasn’t for not polishing their armor right or not working hard enough, it was for being unkind, unthinking arseholes to an old woman and her family. I got curious, so I tailed them for a while. Not like I had anything better to do.

“I didn’t care for the shemlen, I never have, but the Commander was different. He was honorable. And he had the most haunted eyes I had ever seen. He had been through horrific things, but he found a way to go on. A purpose. He marched on every day. It was the first sign I’d gotten that it might be possible to live after. . . .” She hesitated. “That there might be a way, if not through, then a way to walk with the weight on your shoulders.

“So one day, I took out three of his perimeter guards, walked right up to him, and said that whatever his mission was, I’d like to join up. That my interview was unconscious on the southern edge of his camp. Turned out he was traveling to Haven to join the Seeker’s Inquisition, collecting people along the way.”

She was lucky she hadn’t been killed. With anyone but Cullen, she probably would have been, and they wouldn’t have bothered to ask questions. But I don’t have to tell her that. Maybe it had even been a win-win for her: join up, or be executed. I know the feeling, ‘There’s nothing to lose.’ Of being alone, of being so tired that you’re just done. After a certain point, salvation is salvation; as long as it ends, it stops mattering how.

“A few months later, I heard a rumor they’d found a naked elf under the Breach. Beautiful, couldn’t figure out if she was a girl or a woman, mark in her hand that matched the Rifts. Weirdest shit I’d ever heard. Figured it was something someone came up with drunk one night to impress a girl.”

I want to tell her that not all Qunari are like the ones who wiped out her people. That Bull is about as different from other Qunari as anyone can get. But I don’t know if that’s really true. He waged war for his people for years. However he had embraced his current persona, he had done so on orders. He would do anything on orders. In a couple years, no matter what we go through together, even if we were to fall deeply in love, if things don’t go right and his people order him to kill me, he’ll do it. Bull is a wild card until he chooses a side. But either way, words like that are a cold compress offered to a freezing person. So I just sit there, failing to find a single thing that might take any of that old ache away.

Eventually, I guess, “You were afraid I’d find you unworthy. Because you made mistakes. Because you think you’re bowing to the people who destroyed the ancient elves.”

She doesn’t answer, which is answer enough.

I look out to the reflection of the moon on the water, warping and mending, soft and torn. “If there was a world just for the elven people, Elden, if it were to happen some day, it would be a lucky place if even a handful of them were like you.

“Forcing yourself to suffer on a path that would only have deepened your wound so you could say you followed the letter of the law would have been. . .” I consider my words. I want to be honest, but I also don’t want to disparage beliefs that are in her bones, pressed in by generations of racial memory and pain and tradition and zealot-like determination.

“Idiotic?” She suggests.

I laugh despite myself, and it turns into a sputter as I quickly shut it up. “I was, uh, trying to be a little more delicate than that. Sensitive, you know.”

She nods grandly. “Because of course I’ve always shown myself to be one for that kind of thing.”

“Dainty as a flower, yes. It’s why I like you so much.” I sober. “I’m not one for the letter of the law most of the time. I just. . . look, I have some opinions on the dalish. But I understand they’re just that: opinions. I don’t think they're more right than anyone else's. I don't need to cram them down anyone’s throats, and I certainly don’t need to disrespect your heritage and your people’s way of life when those things are now knotted up with the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. You come from a strong people. Sometimes strength and, uh, selective sight just go hand in hand.”

“You’re not a shit,” she compliments.

“Thanks,” I say with a gentle smile for no one but myself. “I try. Most of the time.”

“. . .What  _do_  you think of us? Really?”

“Really?” I look to make sure she’s serious, then consider for a moment. “I think you’ve had the most shit fortune of anyone in the world since Tevinter found your people. Really just comedic-level epic tragedy, or it would be if it weren’t so disgusting. I think you people have worked your asses off to preserve everything you could. I think you’re flawed just like everyone else, that for your virtues, you also have your faults, and vice versa. I think I respect your determination, your faith, but I also think. . .” Apology enters my voice. “I’m never going to advocate for an inflexible worldview, Elden. Or an inflexible way of life. I’m not a fan of hard-line. Your people are ice; I’m liquid. Being fluid is my nature, which means I’m never going to quite ‘get’ that level of closed-circuit dedication. So I can only try to relate so well. But like I said, those are just opinions, and I can respect your people and their ways and beliefs despite them. Those are two separate worlds. And different things are right for different people.”

I pause, gentling my voice. “But. . . you want me to be really honest?”

She isn’t looking at me, but she nods.

I pause to put my shirt back on. “I think it’s a lost cause,” I say softly. “I think I understand why you do it, but every bit of your lore was ripped from you, not once, but twice, and held out of your reach for hundreds of years. There was only ever so much that could be done with that, and it means that no matter how hard you work to reclaim lost knowledge, you're building on a platform of sand. What your people believe, what they struggle to preserve. . . it’s like the truth seen through the reflection of a mirror that’s been broken, then each shard bent and warped. It’s like trying to make a kaleidoscope into a clear shape. Pieces are there, but it’s unrecognizable from what it once was.”

She looks at me for the first time. “You’ll tell us, though? The truth? The real truth? Our history?”

I pause, looking down. I absently flick a pebble into the water, if only to buy myself an instant more. “What if all I have to tell you is that everything you know is wrong?”

Hard determination mingles with pain in her scent. “We would want to know,” she says, iron in her voice. I know that if I looked up, I’d see it in her eyes, too. “We care about the truth. We live for our history, and for the day we’ll be restored. Who we are and where we come from. If we have the chance to learn all of that from the  _source,_  even if it means we have to unlearn everything we thought we knew, the People will want it. They will cry out for it, Prophet. Please. Don’t take something like that away from us. Not when it’s closer than it has been in our entire history.”

I almost laugh mirthlessly. They had someone far more knowledgeable than me try to teach it to them, and they chased him away and threatened him.

“. . . What if it causes a riot? There are going to be more Dalish camped around us than there are people in several of the world’s major cities combined. We can’t even guess at how many. If I tell them something they don’t want to hear, they could go on a warpath. I’m guessing your clan  _wasn’t_  abnormally large.”

“Do you really think us so savage?” She asks quietly.

“I think you--” ‘human,’ I was going to say. But of course that expression won’t work here. “People. And people respond to their passions. No one is above that. It’s just a question of what their threshold is.

“You know them better than anyone, Elden. What will they do if I tell them their gods were slavers and horrific, self-serving abusers? If Andruil hunted the People for sport and Falon’din started wars that lasted centuries just to force more people to follow him? What will they do if I tell them that they weren’t gods at all, but lying, manipulative, power-mad amoral bastards who lived on the snapping backs of their people and delighted in causing agony and suffering? If in the end, the elvhen people fell to stop them from literally destroying the entire world in their greed and savagery? And if the great villain of their history, their stories, was actually their savior?”

Her eyes go wide and stark with horror and illness. “. . .Is that true?”

“What if it was?”

She looks down. Swallows. Opens her mouth to speak, then closes it again. Agony, heartbreak, anger, confusion and denial, all are mixed in with adrenaline and pouring into the air. Determination caps it off and she looks back at me. “I won’t lie, it will be difficult to hear. And I for one would want to know why Dirthamen would come to us in dreams only to lead us to a Prophet who was going to tell us he was a monster. But you were  _there._  We will still want to know. I can’t tell you how everyone will take it, but our history is  _everything_  to us, Nua. Even if you have things to tell us that are painful, difficult to hear, we will respect them coming from you. The People are traveling from all over the world to hear it from your lips.”

‘You wouldn’t respect them if you found out who made me,’ I think darkly. “How certain are you? Because I can’t risk the Inquisition, Elden. Maybe when all of this is over, but not now. It’s the only thing that’s going to save your world.”

“Positive,” she says firmly. “But if you’d like, I can speak to some of the clans and. . . test the waters, somewhat. I won’t tell them anything you just told me without your permission, of course. It wouldn’t be my place.”

“The truth is everyone’s place. But I get what you mean. And thank you. How many are there, by the way? Dalish?”

“It’s hard to say for certain, but spread out over all of Thedas should be at least 200,000 of us. Our clans are much larger than we let the humans think.”

I pale.

“We’re not stupid,” she says, some mix of amused and defensive. “We’re not all going to swarm some tiny shem hamlet in the frozen mountains.” I nearly sag in relief. “They’ll see the signs of the clans who have come before them. Probably they’ll hold back, find a safe spot to set up camp, and send an envoy. They’ll coordinate and figure out how to spread themselves without putting too much strain on the area or putting themselves - or you - at too great a risk, while still staying close enough to be ready when you call for them. It will be like an Arlathvhen, just larger.

“We know what the shemlen think of us. There are some clans that are more aggressive than most, but I can guarantee you that not even they will be willing to make an overt move, to make their intentions or association to you known until you tell us it’s time.” I actually sag from relief now. This takes care of my biggest fear about their converging on Haven.

Elden smiles wryly. “The dalish are familiar with how the shems tend to condemn by association, and they’re here -  _we_  are here - for you, not the other way around. We won’t risk you, and we won’t move until you tell us it’s time. We haven’t survived this long by accident. By taking chances or being stupid or not knowing how the shems do things.”

And just like that, I have an army at least 50,000 strong. An army that knows how to move undetected, that doesn’t need our healers, smiths, cooks, resources. To say it is staggering would be a disorienting understatement.

“I appreciate that. It takes more of a load off than I can say. I have Josephine and Leliana doing damage control already, trying to stop the message that dalish converging on the fledgeling Inquisition would inevitably send. Unfortunately, we need their cooperation.” I sigh. “Now,” a tiny smile finds its way to my lips, “I just have to tell them to stop before we out ourselves.” I recognize a warm numbness in my forehead that I think is a headache.

“Can you name any other army in the world 200,000 strong?”

“Oh, so you were only counting all the strong, reasonably trained, able-bodied men and women in your estimate, then? And of course they’re already outfitted with weapons and armor. And all of that will just magically stop every taern and sovereign in a thousand miles from standing against us on principal any time we need to cross their lands or get supplies?”

She looks sheepish. “I hadn’t quite thought of that.”

“Which is my worry. It takes a load off to know the dalish will probably be careful, but there’s no guarantee, and all of this is happening at Haven while I’m not there. And I can’t be there, because I have to close Rifts and collect agents and spread the good word or whatever so we can save the stupid world. You know, so people can keep having petty, repugnant race wars and hacking each other to bits over trivial, superficial shit.”

Her voice turns hard, promising. “Whatever we do, we will  _not_  be a burden to you.”

I think of several things to say in reply but discard them all immediately. In the end I just shake my head. “I’m sorry,” I say. “About what I said about the past. I shouldn’t have just. . . dumped it in your lap like that. I guess it’s something I’ve been worrying a lot about, and here I have a sounding board with an insider’s perspective. . . It was selfish. And I really am sorry. If it helps, there were heroes, too, powers who fought for good. And Mythal wasn’t as horrific as the rest of them. She actually cared about her people. I’m not sure I could say I’d call her a good person, but then, I’m hardly playing with a full deck, as Bull put it while you were gone.”

Her face darkens at the mention of him, but it dissipates quickly to give way to a wistful, pensive, strong sort of sadness. Elden has iron in her. It makes me less afraid to be honest with her, to trust her with my thoughts and even my feelings. This is not a woman who breaks easily. I decide to have a word with Cole about her.

I take a deep breath that pushes heavily back out. “Come on,” I say, rising and dusting myself off. “I know potions are magic and all, but let’s get you some rest before you get back on the road. I want you two arriving safely.” I’m considering Sending Cassandra or Bull with them just to be certain of it. Solas and Elden are more than capable, but the world is even less friendly than normal right now.

 

* * * * *

 

Though I take only one watch, I don’t get my extra few hours of sleep tonight. I know where we’re headed, and there are a lot of “bears” to clean out before we can make camp there. I have no interest in a repeat of this morning.

 

* * * * *

 

I haven’t seen Fen’harel since that last long, heavy night of conversation. I was going to be worried if I didn’t see him again tonight, but he’s waiting for me in the forest. To my surprise and delight, he strides forward when I appear and gently presses his forehead to mine. I bury my fingers in his thick fur, then lean back and look up at him, smiling widely--

And wake to the feel of rain on my face and damp clothing. I wrinkle my forehead in confusion; I put a barrier up around myself every night in case it rains, but it’s not in place now. I cast it again, dry my things, and let myself fall back into slumber.

“Sorry,” I huff when I've returned. “I was getting rained on.” My voice makes it clear how bewildered I am about it.

[You are not in a shelter?]

I shake my head. “I like it out in the open. We always have a watch, and I feel better able to act if something comes up when I’m not trapped in a tent. Mostly, though, I like the stars,” I finish with soft sincerity.

Just like that, we are standing in a wide clearing with an unobstructed view of the night sky. I don’t have to say a word for him to know how struck I am by the view, and by the gesture. Or for him to know that I missed him last night. That I was worried.

[I thought it--]

Again I wake to rain. I shove up out of my bedroll angrily. “Ok what the shit,” I snarl.

“Everything ok there, boss?” Varric asks from under the boughs of a tree near the sputtering, weak fire.

“Yeah, I. . . I just don’t get why I’m getting rained on.”

He arches a brow.

“Oh that’s not what I mean,” I snap. “I cast a barrier. Twice. I do it every night.”

“This is the first night we’ve had rain.”

That pulls me up short. “What?”

He shrugs. “You know, your disposition is decidedly less sunny when you don’t get enough sleep. Which is pretty hilarious when you think about it.”

“. . . So help me I will pelt you into the face of the sun.”

He nods. “I see what you mean. I was way off base.”

I mutter unflattering things under my breath as I cast another barrier and dry my things again, dragging them to Bull’s tent. Given that I sleep outside and he’s monstrously huge, he never has to share.

The moment the flap opens, he’s awake and alert, though he gives no outward sign. When he catches my scent, he relaxes.

“It’s just me,” I say anyway. “Move over, you’re sharing tonight.”

He props himself up on one elbow and gives me a  _look,_  a slow grin pulling his lips.

I roll my eyes. “Put it back in your pants, Qunari. It’s raining and for some stupid reason I keep getting wet.”

He arches a brow at me.

“Oh for-- I cast a barrier!”

I hear Varric chuckle under his breath and really do want to pitch him into the sun.

“What is going on?” Cassandra calls.

“The Prophet’s discovering that water is wet,” Varric calls back.

 _”Face. Of the goddamned. **Sun,**_  you demented hobbit!”

“What in Maferath’s dimpled asscheeks is a 'haarbet'?" Varric mutters to himself. "Hm, probably don’t want to know.”  I hear the others settle back down.

“Move the hell over,” I grumble peevishly at Bull. “Not that far.” At the look he gives me, I add, “What? You’re good with boundaries and I never get to touch anyone. I could lie and say I’m wet and I’ll get cold, but. . . well.”

“I like you when you’re tired,” he says with a grin and settles himself back down, scooting his massive frame over a few feet. Just enough so that I can curl up and press my back comfortably against his side.

“Cranky?” I bite out caustically.

“And bossy.”

I make a rude noise with my lips. “Says the consummate Dom.”

“Dom?”

“Dominant. Typically refers to a specific kind of relationship where I’m from,” I say, words a little slurred. “A Dominant and a submissive. I wouldn’t call you dominant in personality. You’re too sly for that.”

“Eh, I’m flexible.”

“Only because you know you can be and because it gets you want you want.”

“You say those like they’re bad things.”

I grunt as I settle down on my bedroll and turn onto my side with a comfortable huff. “I say them like they’re you not being true to whoever the hell you are under those seven-layered labyrinthine masks or personas or whatever. It’s disconcerting.”

“Maybe you’re just inflexible.”

“Now you  _know_  that’s not true.”

He chuckles, deep in his chest and so low that it rattles through my frame. I learn that this body is incredibly responsive and have to surreptitiously press my thighs together. He catches the scent anyway, and when his own smell changes, it just makes my reaction worse. All of that happens in an instant, and then he’s pressing fingertips to my scalp where it rests atop my arm. I oblige and lift my head. He works his arm under it to replace mine, and when I settle down onto the warm, gray-blue skin, the height is perfect, and I am more comfortable than I have been since we left Haven.

“Oh my god that’s amazing,” I effuse. My voice slurs blearily as I add, “You’re hired. You’re hired for everything ever for forever.”

He makes an unfairly sultry sound, low and deep again, and rumbles quietly, “I’ll hold you to that.”

“Mhm,” I utter, trying very hard not to shift my hips.

I hear another chuckle, this one soft and breathy. “‘Night, Boss,” he utters. Then, strangely, I feel a gentle kiss pressed to my hair.

I am out within moments.

 

* * * * *

 

“It was raining,” I explain when faced with my friend a third time. “I cast a barrier, but it just. . . fell, apparently. Twice. What’s weirder is that I guess it hasn’t rained before tonight, which makes me wonder if this maybe isn’t a one-off.”

His mind whirs into speculative exploration, and I feel that sense of rightness that’s only there when he’s engaged in something so quintessentially  _him._  [Hmmm, without seeing how your magic works in the waking world, there is little I could do but speculate.]

I grin to myself. I can feel how much he wants to do just that.

 

* * * * *

 

I break away from him before long, though tonight, I sorely resent having to use my sleeping hours for work. I may demand a night off. The idea that it would be a reasonable demand is so understated I could laugh.

I tell Cullen what I learned from Elden, and he nearly sags with relief. He is dressed in that godforsaken draping, open-necked tunic again. He’s oblivious to my reaction, but Fen’harel is not. I pull my ara’lin in peevishly.

Most people’s - Cullen’s, for instance - bodies act in the Fade just like the would in the waking world. If you’re afraid, your pupils contract. If you’re embarrassed and your body is inclined to it, you blush. Scents are just as clear here as they are when I’m awake. Except for people like Fen’harel and I, who know that what we present in the Fade is whatever we want it to be. So he doesn’t smell my reaction so much as feel it.

“I can’t help it,” I growl under my breath at his peevishness. “The same thing happened tonight, maybe I’m. . . I don’t know.”

He catches the gist of my thoughts, and says, [You are not in heat. It would be readily apparent if you were.]

I do a double-take and gawp at him.  _”Excuse me?”_

“What?” Cullen asks.

I look between him and Fen’harel, sputtering. “I-- There was-- I have--” I break off with a growl. “Nothing. It’s nothing. I’m sorry. There’s. . . we have a non-verbal layer of communication,” I gesture between myself and the monstrous “wolf,” to Cullen’s immediate and overt displeasure, “and sometimes it. . . ugh, well it doesn’t matter.” I turn a glare at Fen’harel and bite out under my breath, “We are talking about this later, and you are going to stop leaving things about my anatomy out.”

I ask Cullen to have Josie and Leliana stop agents from heading off the rumors about the dalish, and then Fen’harel and I spend the rest of the night watching over his dreams from a respectful distance while I get a lesson in Elvhen reproductive anatomy.

[Elvhen did not sexually mature until the roughly one thousand years, though physical maturity was reached around one to two hundred.] The bottom drops out of my stomach. [Your cycle will be roughly one hundred and fifty years long. Two hundred or more was not unheard of, but it was uncommon. When you enter estrus. . . .] He shifts, and something like discomfort and vicious territorialness wafts off him, [It was a time of indescribable vulnerability for elvhen women. Males were not plagued with it, but they did react to females who were in the state, and were thus triggered to enter into an answering frenzy. The anatomical differences, or rather the functional anatomical differences that occurred during this time were. . . substantial. For that and other reasons, women were usually sequestered alone with their chosen mates until the period had run its course.]

“Fffff. . . . W-- Ok. That’s. . . wow. Uh, I don’t suppose you know when my last cycle was?”

[Before you disappeared, it had been perhaps. . . ] He pauses a long moment, thinking. [Not quite one hundred years, I believe. Yours tended to run between two hundred and two hundred fifty years.]

“So I’m good for a while, then.”

[. . .I cannot say.]

“Oh. Right.” I feel like an asshole.

[No apology is necessary,] he assures me, reacting to what I don’t say. [I would dearly like to find out what happened, however.]

He hasn’t said as much, but part of the tours of his - our - home have been the hope that something will jog my memory. So far, nothing has.

“Do I want to know how long elvhen pregnancy lasted?”

I feel him look at me. [No.]

I shudder visibly, pulling my shoulders up to my ears. “Any demon updates?”

He wordlessly gives the negative. [They have proven. . . elusive.]

I am sitting up against his side, and I crane my neck to look at him. “Why is that so perplexing?

[Given how quickly they found you and the number that converged, it has been my guess that a great many of them must be working together, and that they are widespread. It is not impossible that it was luck, but I cannot believe that was the case. Yet I am unable to find any who seem to be hunting. No spirits know of it, nor, apparently, do the demons I have questioned. My search for the Dirthamen imposter has proven just as fruitless.] I don’t need his ara’lin to know how utterly frustrated he is. He could really use a win right now.

“You question demons?”

He nods wordlessly. [They are nearly impossible to get answers out of, but it can be done if you know what you are doing. And if you are lucky.]

“How are you finding the time to do all of this? We spend so much time together. . . . I mean I know you said time moves differently here, but. . . .”

[I will take the time if I need it. So far, I have been able to keep up the hunt well enough.]

“On top of everything else you have to do?”

I feel him look at me for a long time, and the weight of secrets that passes through him. All he says is, [Yes.] I cannot hide the sting I feel at his refusal to tell me more, but we both know I understand it.

[I have been meaning to ask you. You have traveled a number of days since.] ‘Your first kill,’ he “says,” much more gently than he ever could out loud. [How are you faring with it?]

My brows draw together. “You know. . . this will maybe sound a little psychopathic, but it doesn’t bother me anymore. At all.”

I’m shocked when he isn’t the least bit surprised. In fact, he was expecting almost that exact answer. [It has in large part to do with how you were made. You adapt quickly. Pain or guilt over what you have done, what you must do, would interfere with your ability to do it.]

“. . .Right,” I say, flat and dry. “So like I said, a little psychopathic.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something was actually supposed to happen in this chapter, I swear. But then I looked up and it was over 8,000 words long.
> 
> You folks have two commenters to thank for my fic infidelity, AKA this chapter. Two very wordy commenters. <3
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> I should have credited this like five more times by now, but I pull so much stuff from [Ad Infinitum,](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2845277/chapters/6381311) especially anything that makes Thedas more real. The dangers of pregnancy and broken bones, how birth control would work, just... so many things. I didn't personally start to really like it until the tenth chapter, but in hindsight, if I had stopped reading it before then, I would go back in time and smack myself upside the head.
> 
> A better version of "seven-layered labyrinthine mask" is also something I got from another fic, but I can't for the life of me remember what fandom it was even from. I want to say The Mortal Instruments, but idk.


	21. Well-Rounded

“You look happy,” Varric says, sly and smug, as I return from an early morning walk. I take time alone to wake up every morning - Elden argued against the wisdom of me wandering around alone until Cassandra flatly told her I’d be fine, then refused to discuss it further.

“Oh? Yeah, it’s probably because of all the sex Bull and I had last night. Which of course makes sense, because a, I’m still alive and not literally split in half, and b, we both seem like the type to do that sort of thing quietly.”

I feel Solas seethe, but it’s for the sake of the displeasure I smell from Elden that I lay off. I sit with Varric on a fallen log I put before the fire last night, then dried off early this morning. I shrug a shoulder. “I don’t get to touch people a lot. I guess it helped me sleep.”

There is an odd twinge from Solas - it’s like he’s defensive on Fen’harel’s behalf. I’d be lost without my time with him in the Fade, without the way he always finds some way to be touching me, no matter how slight. But the difference between his touch in the Fade and physical touch in the physical world is like dreaming that you’re swimming, then waking up and _feeling_ your body submerge.

I see understanding on the faces around me, then sadness and embarrassment. “Mostly, though” I say puckishly, keen to break the tension, “it was the sex. Nice way to break in a maybe-virgin.”

Elden chokes on her tea - I think she gets some up her nose - and Cassandra flatly says, “That is not funny.”

“Sure it was! Depending on your sense of humor. Besides, I only said it because it was that, or continue to sit here while the rest of you stare at me like someone just murdered my mother and my dog.”

There is a beat of silence, then Varric clears his throat. He is dishing up and handing out the vaguely tan gruel that passes for breakfast. I have yet to try it. This morning, it is accompanied by some sort of tiny, hard-looking berry and patchily-toasted bread. Beast has been inching closer with painful slowness, and either I am the only one who has noticed, or no one else cares.

I have tried to tie him up at night to ensure he doesn’t wander off, but he has been very clear in his opinion of my effort. The morning after I’d tried the second time, we’d woken to find that despite the fact that we always have a watch posted, he had somehow rooted through everyone’s bags, pulled out anything even vaguely resembling rope - including the thin leather thongs Elden uses to keep her hair out of her face - and chewed it to pulp and scraps. He even gnawed through the harness of Varric’s pack. It had been a force or will not to laugh myself stupid while I magicked them back together. Beast hasn’t wandered off yet, so I suppose I just shouldn’t irritate him too badly, and hopefully he’ll stick around.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” the dwarf says after a sip of ale. “Before we left Haven, word is your tutor got a pretty weird injury.” He waits for me to look at him. “Tripped over his pointer, apparently. Though to hear him tell it, you jabbed the thing right through his hand.”

I lean back on my hands. “Oh, I did,” I say conversationally.

To a one, their hands stop between bowls and mouths. “You. . . did.” Cassandra says.

“He was being a dick! I warned him not to do it again. Twice.”

“In the language no one but you and Chuckles knows?”

“Yeah, how did you magically start _speaking_ it, too?” Elden asks Solas.

“Magic,” I say. “Now stop interrupting.” I turn to Varric. “I told him In the universal language of very clear, very specific glaring. When he did it a third time, I made sure he couldn’t do it a fourth. Which was a good thing anyway, Eddard was a way better teacher.”

Cassandra groans so only I can hear as Varric says, “So you literally jammed the thing through his hand?" He laughs dryly. "You’d like Isabella.”

I arch a brow at him. “I just said I did. And Isabella would eat me for breakfast. Uh, figuratively speaking.”

“Right. Back to the impaling-your-teacher thing. . . .You don’t think that was maybe a _slight_ overreaction?”

I scowl. “No. You people have healing potions! He probably doesn’t even have a scar. Maybe next time he tries to teach someone, he’ll stop to wonder if corporal correction is really the best way to go.”

“Or he will simply take it out on future students,” Solas offers a little too brightly. I glower at him.

“He was the cowardly type, not the vendetta type. Crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside. I nicked his shell. He’ll be hiding under rock for a while.”

“Good thing Eddard likes sweets so much,” Varric mutters.

“Yes, exactly! Positive reinforcement is always the way to go when you want to train someone. Plus it was experiential learning, not staring at a bunch of inscrutable lines in the pages of old books.

“Good word, inscrutable,” Varric says.

“You _would_ like it,” Cassandra tells him.

 _“Anyway,_ you always lead with the carrot, make it fun. Do you have that saying here? The carrot and the stick?” Varric nods, and I hide a little thrum of disquiet in my gut. “It works different pathways in the brain, so it goes by much faster, and more effectively. Eddard is a walking set of complete encyclopedias. The only reason he’s an apprentice is probably because he was cursed with pointy ears,” I say churlishly, lightly flicking one of mine to illustrate. Then cursing loudly and exhaustively in three languages as I press the heel of my hand over it. Even Bull’s brows are raised by the end. Varric, for his part, just looks proud and wildly entertained. Elden is amused, but a little bewildered.

“What?” I ask her. “I thought sensitive ears were an elf thing.”

“Well. . . yeah, they are. But not _that_ sensitive. Creators, you must get turned on in a stiff breeze.”

Everyone, including me, is gaping at her, and I am thanking god that this body doesn’t blush.

She takes in our expressions. “Oh, grow up.”

“I knew elves’ ears were one of their biggest erogenous zones,” Bull says clinically, and I hold my breath at the smell that comes off of Elden. “But a breeze? Lucky as hell if it’s true, but you’d never be able to get anything done.”

I am too busy remembering a number of seemingly random times I have felt a shockwave of arousal. I had developed something of a complex over it, because it happened regardless of mood, regardless of who or _what_ I was talking to, thinking about. . . . But now it started to make sense. Breeze. Thick fog. The brush of a blanket or fabric, a sound of the right frequency, a leaf, someone with long hair passing too close. . . .

“Ehhhh, I don’t know,” Varric argues, setting his bowl down next to him. It’s only mostly empty, and the way Beast eyes it, it becomes clear what exactly he’s been trying to do. I clear my throat pointedly, but not too loudly. When the horse meets my eyes, I give him a _look._ He stops and paws at the ground with a loud snort, annoyed. “Seems like it’d be a pain in the ass to me.”

Bull and Varric both look at me like I’m supposed to settle the matter. But Beast starts to edge toward Varric’s bowl again and, as if they haven’t spoken, I turn to Elden. “So,” I say, trying not to make the eye I’m keeping on Beast obvious, “that’s seriously not. . . I mean. . . well how sensitive are _your_ ears?”

It seems like a personal thing to be asking, but she wasn’t shy a moment ago. As if to confirm it, she blushes a little. It’s probably the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen. While she’s offering an explanation, Solas mutters, quiet enough that even Bull doesn’t hear, “An elvhen trait.”

“Wonderful,” I mutter in return, loud enough for the others to hear.

“You get desensitized as you get older,” she says a little sheepishly. It is the second most adorable thing I have ever seen. “I mean, you’re _supposed_ to. You know, most. . . elves.” It sounds like an uncomfortable sort of stutter, but her message is clear. ‘Modern elves.’ “The shems used to make us cover them, back in Tevinter, but the practice didn’t carry over after the Dales, thank the--” her brow wrinkles almost imperceptibly, “whatever gods there may be.”

Solas looks at her curiously. He glances at me when everyone else’s eyes are darting surreptitiously between the massive creature looming behind Varric, and me.

As Beast slowly, so slowly, lowers his head toward Varric’s bowl, I cast a barrier around the dwarf and his food. Beast’s muzzle thuds into it and he jerks his head back with a shake and a cry, which makes Varric nearly jump out of his skin.

“Shit! Was no one going to tell me?” He half-hollars. “Really?”

“You’d better figure out how to make friends, Varric,” I say. “He seems like the type to hold a grudge.”

 _“Me?”_ He cries. “That thing has been after me from the day we met!”

“You did insult him,” Elden says, working at her own meal as if nothing has happened.

“The horsemaster’s daughter said his line was descended from the ancient Harts, did she not? Their pride and tempers were infamous, should they find reason to take insult. It was said they had long memories, as well.”

“I never insulted it! And Elden called it a monster, why isn’t it ruining her things?”

“I think he took it as a compliment,” I said. “Plus he seems to like women better than men. And you did so insult him, you made fun of his tail.”

“I made--!”

“He’s jealous, too,” Cole says. “Why does the ugly short one get to sit so close? Why does she laugh when he speaks? I am better.”

“Oh, _come on,”_ Varric says. He sounds like he’s caught us trying to pull a practical joke on him. “You actually think it understands us?”

“You spent a decade with Cake,” I say, “what do you think? And not calling him _it_ might be a good place to start.”

“Cake?” Cassandra asks. “What does cake have to do with any of this?”

“Cake was the name of Hawke’s mabari,” Varric answers, exasperated. “She named it after the Hero of Ferelden’s. And if _he_ was a mabari, I would understand, but _he_ isn’t a mabari, _he’s_ a horse. Mabari are made with _magic,_ for shit’s sake, that’s the only reason they're so intelligent.” he argues.

“The Queen of Ferelden has a mabari named Cake?” Cassandra asks.

“Varric,” I say, “please, your world is swimming with magic. You have sentient trees and mountains,” Solas’ attention snaps to me, though the rest of him stays as it is, “you think a horse can’t understand you? Look at his head. His brain is probably bigger than yours!”

“Sentient mountains?” Elden asks.

“Now you’re just making it personal,” Varric objects, ignoring her. “And making shit up.”

“A story for another time,” I say to her. “We’ll meet one later, anyway.” To Varric, I argue, haughtily, “I am an impartial presence, thank you very much. And I don’t lie unless I have to.”

“Sentient _mountains?”_ Bull asks.

“Keep up,” I tell him, turning my head a little in his direction, but not looking away from Varric.

The Dwarf snorts. “Fine. Fine, I’m sorry I hurt its-- _his_ feelings. And for Andraste’s sake, don’t ever let one of the ‘proper’ dwarves hear you talk about living mountains. They're bad enough as it is.”

“Won’t be an issue,” I say. “I think they’re pretty much extinct, anyway. Now don’t tell me you’re sorry, I’m not the one you insulted.”

“Oh for-- _Fine.”_ He swivels to face Beast, who has walked over to Elden and lowered his head so she can scratch the underside of his muzzle. She is careful to keep her eyes away. “I’m sorry, Ser horse, if I mistakenly insinuated your tail was anything less than glorious and perfect. I’m sure it strikes fear into the hearts of your enemies and makes all the lady horses blush and swoon. Your coat glistens like the night stars, your powerful flanks are. . . . can I stop now? It’s getting creepy.” He turns and asks me. He looks like he’s sucking on something bitter but trying not to show it.

“You’re the one who made it weird. I said you should apologize to him, not flirt.” That is how I learn that Varric’s face can, in fact, make an unfriendly expression. I look at Beast. He is pretending to ignore Varric, his eyes closed as he leans into Elden’s fingers, but a minute amount of tension has left his chest and forelegs.

“It is better,” Cole answers, a little hesitantly.

“But don’t push it,” I finish.

Varric looks from Cole, to me, then just shakes his head and mutters to himself, “You people are all insane. Just once, I’d like to get caught up with a group of _sane_ people. At least moderately sane.”

 

* * * * *

 

To my unending and blinding delight, it has been decided that Solas and Elden will ride with us until we near an Inquisition base camp just off the main road out of the Hinterlands. It will take at least half of the day. When they break from our group and get to the camp, they will send word of their departures, collect their escorts, and restock their supplies. I am especially glad for it, begrudgingly, because it turns out Solas isn’t returning to Haven - he’s moving on to another territory to work with a team of soldiers and get a head start on the elvhen devices that will strengthen the Veil. A perfectly logical, prudent reason to pull him away from the rest of us for a while. I must remember to get Leliana flowers. And at present, I am wondering if I will last the afternoon.

“All I’m saying is,” Bull argues. “the way you southerners do it is just as crazy.”

“I imagine it would seem that way to someone who is incapable of thinking for himself,” Solas replies with arch, thin “civility.”

“That’s not really a problem in my line of work. Pretty encouraged, actually,” Bull replies drily. “But I mean, think about it. You have to know how to do _everything._ You’re your own merchants, butchers, accountants, seamstresses. _Plus_ you work on top of that, _and_ you raise kids. The list doesn’t end.

“Don’t even get me started on marriage. Qunari have friends. We have families like you do, people we love. We just don’t have sex with them. Family under the Qun aren’t blood, no, but there’s a strength in that. Here, you expect one person to be everything. Not just a friend, not just a lover, not just a partner. _And_ they’re supposed to be that for as long as you live. People change. It’s insane to think that would ever work.”

“He does kind of have a point,” Varric says.

“It would hardly do to send a spy under deep cover to Thedas who was capable of questioning his peoples’ beliefs,” Solas says. “Iron Bull is nothing if not intelligent, and it is his ‘role’ to weave effective deceptions.”

I swear to god, even his horse looks full of itself. I pinch the bridge of my nose surreptitiously.

Bull makes a thoughtful grunt. “Boss is right. You can be pretty damn closed off.”

“I do not need to examine slavery an infinite number of times on the off chance that it will have miraculously become an entirely different institution since I last looked to know it shouldn’t happen, either.”

“That is the longest sentence I have ever heard, Chuckles,” Varric murmurs to himself.

“The Qun _is_ freedom, Solas. Not slavery. That’s the point. You pass a lot of judgement for someone who’s never seen it from the inside.”

“I have seen it from the inside,” he snaps in his controlled, collected way. “I have lived it in the Fade. Do you think the Qunari were the first to institutionalize mind control? I assure you, the practice dates back many thousands of years, long before your people were even dreamed of. You speak easily of its freedoms while out of its grasp, away from its people and living as you please.”

“Which is it? Either I can’t question that the Qun might be wrong, or I’m enjoying living free of it. I’m fulfilling a role, Solas, doing a job. Just like you are. Just like the Seeker is, just like the Prophet is. We all have parts to play. The difference is that Qunari do their jobs for the benefit of the whole.”

“Parts we choose.”

“Did the Boss choose to be here?”

I can feel the arguments in him, the exasperation simmering just to the right side of almost-sort-of anger. I get the feeling his actual anger is something I don’t want to see.

“Yeah. Didn’t think so.”

“. . .Don’t involve me in absentia or vicariously, either,” I grouse.

“In what?”

“Uch, never mind. It’s another language from my world, I just forgot who I was talking to.”

“I bet you’d be hilarious drunk,” Varric speculates.

"Or obnoxious and terrifying," Elden mutters.

“Assuming I could still control all my scary magic?” I ask churlishly.

“Uh. . . right," he says. "Assuming that.”

 

* * * * *

 

It is surreal how often they have conversations that feel so familiar, it’s as if they’re reciting lines from a play.

 

“I spyyyy--” Varric begins.

“No,” Cassandra says flatly.

“I spy--”

“No.”

“Aw,” I object.

“You should be good at finding things, Seeker. Of course, you. . . couldn’t find Hawke,” he finishes slyly.

 _"Buuuuuuurn,”_ I laugh in English. Solas looks confused.

 

 *

 

“Solas, if you do not mind me asking, what do you believe in?” Cassandra’s tone is genuinely curious.

He pauses to think. “Cause and effect. Wisdom as its own reward, and the inherent right of all free willed people to exist.”

“That isn’t what she meant, and you know it,” I say testily. “Why are you so allergic to just answering a goddamned question? Is it a disease? Is it a way to pat yourself on the back,” I say instead of the much more vulgar thing I want to say, “about how much smarter you are than everyone else? ‘Look at me, the master of answering a question without really saying anything at all.’ It’s misdirection, Solas, it’s not that impressive. Ten year-olds do it.” I know he does it to maintain maintain the front of elven apostate, and in all honesty, he is good at it. That doesn’t stop literally everything he does from making me want to set a cart of puppies on fire. And guise aside, the man laid it on _thick._

Varric whistles, low and quiet. “Maybe you _were_ up all night after all,” he mutters to himself. Then he flushes invisibly, I assume remembering that I hear everything.

Solas arches a brow, droll. I know my unfair disdain toward him is wearing on the others. To some, it has gotten downright annoying. I'm too grateful for the fact that if they're annoyed at me, it means they're at least looking at me like I'm an actual person, to be as affected by it as I should. Bull doesn't get annoyed, though, not about that. Bull only gets curious.

“I am aware what the Seeker meant, Prophet.” He returns his attention to her, at least outwardly. The rest is on me. I swat at it, but he ignores the effort. “I believe the elven gods existed, as did the old gods of Tevinter. But I do not think any of them were gods, unless you expand the definition of the word to the point of absurdity. I appreciate the idea of your Maker, a god that does not need to prove his power. I wish more such gods felt the same.”

“You have seen much sadness in your journeys, Solas." When have they been talking that she knows so much about his journeys? "Following the Maker might offer some hope.”

I almost snort. 

“I have people, Seeker," he says with gentle finality. "The greatest triumphs and tragedies this world has known can all be traced to people.”

Instantly, my anger is gone - only slight annoyance simmers in its place. It is mostly, but only mostly, in response to the shame he has made me feel, as if I am nothing more than an instrument to be played. And it hurts, because unlike the others, I know that his words are not philosophy. He speaks from experience.

 

 *

 

Cole is 'hearing.'

“Barman laughs. Slides the drink over. Tankard in view the whole time, no chance poison was added. Blade at his waist. Club under the bar. Moves with training, mercenary or guard. Use that if I have to.”

“Yeah," Bull agrees. "I go for the shoulder, a shot he trained to take on the armor. But, since he's a barman now and not a merc, he bleeds, flinches, and I trap the arm and break his neck.”

“Why, The Iron Bull?”

“I didn't do it, kid. It was just idle thought, in case it came up.”

“Do you think about how to kill everyone you meet?”

“Do you not?”

". . .What would you do to take  _me_ down?" I ask curiously.

"Hmmm. . . it would have to be poison. You're too strong to overpower, and your reflexes are so good there'd be no way I could sneak up on you. I've seen you catch an arrow flying at the back of your head. So poison. Get you to trust me, then sneak it into something you're going to eat or drink."

"But you don't know if anything will work on me."

"No, but if it doesn't kill you, it either does nothing or makes you sick. And if you trust me, you wouldn't get suspicious, not right away. That gives me time to adjust my approach."

I nod as if it's a satisfying answer. "And when you figure out I can smell the poison?"

_". . .Fuck."_

". . .Is no one going to comment on the fact that we're trying to figure out the best way to murder her?" Elden argues. It is the most heated I think I've heard her.

"Hey," Bull says, "It's good to think about these things. Helps you figure out what to guard against." He pauses. "Besides, this is going to keep me up at night, now. Seriously." 

I am reminded of an eerily similar conversation had between Zevhran and some of Alaine's other party members long ago.

“. . .I like your horns," Cole says. "But they’re dragon horns, not bull horns. You could have named yourself--”

“The Iron Dragon,” I cut in, letting the words slip over my tongue like a finger running down Bull's chest.

“Oh, shit. That <i>would</i> have been better.”

“I was going to say that,” Cole objects.

“I know.” My eyes crinkle, warm. “I couldn’t help myself.”

“Because. . . I already said it. It happened before, so now it was your turn.”

“Something like that. Sorry, though. I probably should have let you."

“The world is paper, wet and thin. They are so small, and everything is eggshell, a tiny thing dropped from a nest. I will shatter it all if I am not careful, always careful, watching, wanting, working, aching. Mountains and men, easy to break. Did I remember that or has it happened yet? Always getting it mixed up. What they can't know, what they should, the world is already cracked, made of brittle glass, why am I doing this? Is it for me, for them, for him? Point, pointless principal, a parade of parts and pieces, and they are all so small, but I am small too, right? Everything is fog, knots they can't see, and I will never not be alone again--” He cuts off sharply, sucking in a breath.

I feel like saltwater is sinking through me, and it is so intense that it has Solas' attention snapping to me, sharp and avid, but I barely feel it. It is like he cares sometimes, so much, and I hate him for it.

I suppose it’s only fair; Cole does this, will do this, to everyone. All the same, it's--

“I didn’t mean to make you sad, or sick. I only want to help. It is questions, all around you, so many more than most people. Why do you keep secrets?”

‘Why do _people_ keep secrets,’ I know he means.

Our horses fill a silence. “I think it’s part of how we shape our world, Cole.”

“But you can't. This world is hard, it doesn't change.”

“It is the best we manage,” Solas says. “In the physical world, a person’s mind is the only thing they may truly control. We shape what we believe the way you would shape the Fade. Our mind is our reality, and other people are a part of that reality.”

“But. . . you keep them secret. You hide them, even from yourselves.”

"Some realities are harder to face than others," I say. "Harder than the pain of keeping them locked up."

“We share those things with people we trust,” Elden says, somber.

I remember everything she told me the night before, and it all takes a new shape. My reality shifts.

Cole thinks about this, then looks at me. “You can trust them. They would all understand, even if they can’t.”

Silence lays heavy for a long while.

“You can,” Cole says. “I don’t mind.”

I look up at him in surprise. I’m not fast enough to chase what he’s referring to, until he holds a hand out. It hadn’t been more than an errant thought, an impulse, not chosen or decided enough to even wonder if it would hurt him, to consider if I wanted to, should.

“You don’t hurt like other people. You’re soft. Supple, soothing, same. I saw a hot bath in a man’s head once. He went in the water when he hurt, and it took it all away. It’s like that. I promise to tell you if I don’t like it. If something hurts.”

I hesitate. “Even if it means you won’t be able to help me?”

He takes a moment to consider. “Yes,” he says speculatively. “It hurts you more to hold everyone. If I _don’t_ tell you, you won't let me try.”

I’m aware of the cutting heat and pressure of everyone’s attention. But I let my universe be the boy next to me, and something in my heart thaws just as it sinks. With relief prickling on my skin, I reach out and take Cole’s hand.

After a time, with forced brightness I say to Bull, “You could always change your name.”

“Nah, I’m good with this. It gets the job done. Besides, it’s what people know me as. Don't want to build a reputation twice.”

I look at him as I lean in toward Cole. I whisper, “Is that really why he doesn’t want to change it?”

“No. It is who wants to be. This one fits, like good armor, or a Tamassran when it has been too long.”

I blink rapidly at that. Bull saves me by saying, “Thanks for sticking the ‘the’ on there, though. You and the kid. Most people forget. It kinda makes it sound like I'm not really a person. Like I'm this dangerous _thing,_ you know?”

“You made it a joke on yourself," Cole says, "making a mockery, so you would never be that.”

“It kills the joke if you explain it, kid.”

"A Joker said that," Cole muses.

I smile wryly. “Welcome to the family, The Iron Bull.”

 

*

 

“Seeker,” Solas begins conversationally, “you initially believed our ‘Maker’s Prophet’ was involved in the attack on the Conclave, yes?”

“I did. The evidence seemed damning, given the lack of an alternative.”

“Yet you changed your mind.”

“You also heard the voices at the temple - is it so surprising I listened to them?”

“Sadly, yes. Too few invested with authority possess the courage to alter their course. They fear the appearance of weakness.”

“The truth is more important than my reputation, and anyone willing to accuse me of weakness is welcome to try,” she says, her voice almost stony by the end. Endearingly stony. But only because I know she’s on my side. My lips curl as I think of her as Divine.

“Cassandra?” I say. “I know you’re worried about that. The fact that you were so certain I was responsible, that you were ready to act on it.” The others go attentive the way they always do when I talk about things I shouldn’t know. “Don’t be. It’s not nearly as important as the fact that you changed your mind when faced with new information. _That’s_ what you should take away from it. Don’t doubt yourself too much. Question? Yes. But not doubt, not like that. You’re someone worth having faith in. You’re someone worth following.”

I feel her discomfort, so I go on. “Almost anyone else in your place would have killed me outright. You know that. The evidence was damning, as you said. I had destroyed the Temple of Sacred Ashes. I had ruined your greatest, maybe your only chance for peace. I had murdered people you loved and needed, and still you made yourself stop and take stock. You asked questions while you were grieving and furious. You left me to face justice rather than cut me down.” Which would have been justice, had I been guilty. Not prudent, perhaps, but justice.

“I know you wanted to do all of those things. But you aren’t what you want to do. You aren’t what you’re tempted to do, or what you almost do, or what you think about doing. You’re the side that wins in the end. You’re the wolf you feed the most. You’re what you _do_. . . do.” I groan silently. “Ten-point dismount,” I mutter to myself.

“Wolf?” Elden asks.

“It’s a fable from a people mine. . . well, from an old people, who were much more wise than mine. Two wolves live inside the hearts of all people, it says. One is good and just and right, the best things a person can be. The other is anger, pettiness, glut, the worst parts of ourselves, and the two are constantly fighting to dominate our spirit. In the fable, it’s a grandfather telling all this to his grandson. The grandson then asks, ‘How do I know which wolf will win?’ The grandfather replies, ‘Whichever one you feed.’”

Solas seems satisfied, but not for Fen'harel so much as the fact that someone, somewhere was wise enough to come up with something like that. A people. 

“I. . . will think on that,” Cassandra says. “Thank you.”

 

 *

 

“Iron Bull," Solas begins. His tone is perfectly civil, and yet it has that note no one else seems to pick up on that tells me this isn’t going to be an invitation to braid one another’s hair and talk about boys. Twice in one godforsaken day. He cannot leave soon enough. “I understand that among your people, you are... what is the term?”

“Ben-Hassrath. Secret police. Spies, basically.”

“You spied upon your own people.” He doesn’t even pretend to try to hide the condemnation and judgement. It is no wonder he and Fen’harel get along. Solas must have been his bannerman.

“Is that so different from Orlais or Ferelden? They have all kinds of people policing them.”

“What they say and do, yes. Not what they think.”

“What you think _is_ what you say and do.”

“No. Even the lowliest peasant may find freedom in the safety of her thoughts. You take even that.”

“That’s not....” he groans quietly. “Boss, you want to help me out, here?”

“Absolutely not,” I say incredulously.

He’s Hissrad. The Iron Bull. He doesn’t need my help, or anyone else’s. Which either means he thinks I can crack the shell easier than he can, or that this is some kind of a test. Or he just doesn’t feel like dealing with it. But if that were the case, he could shut it down easily enough. Since I really doubt he cares whether he converts some random apostate elf, that means it’s a test, and it makes me peevish.

“You jumped into the latrine,” I say, “enjoy what’s inside on your own. I warned you.”

"Hey, I didn't start this."

"No, but you saw it and stepped in, anyway."

But it weighs on me, heavier and heavier until I can’t keep it in. With an angry sigh, annoyed at myself, I say, “He’s talking about seeds, Solas.”

“And what seeds a person chooses to cultivate in their own mind should be their decision alone,” he retorts.

“...Yeah. You’re welcome, Bull. For that priceless assist. Next time you even pretend I exist while you two are pissing over the Qun, I’m snapping one of your horns off.”

“...You know, that could be kind of hot, having a broken horn.”

As if I’ve been taking lessons from Cassandra, I loose a hearty disgusted sound. "Fine. Then I'll gouge out your other eye instead."

 

 *

 

“So, Kid," Varric muses, "why human?” He asks this as we're ferreting through the pockets and packs of a group of mages we just killed. For some reason, this part still leaves me unsteady.

“It was the shape that would help,” Cole answers.

“Huh. Most people don't pick a shape. I guess I was hoping for something deeper with that question.”

“It had to be him. But harmless. The him he wanted that wouldn't hurt.”

“Well that's... deeper. I think.”

“He means magic,” I say as I'm bent over, ferreting through a satchel. “Cole, the first Cole, wished with everything he was at the end that he hadn’t been a mage. He thought everything would have been different. Better. Safer.”

“It would have been,” Cole says.

I glance at him. “Our Cole--" he repeats the words to himself as if tasting them, "looks like this, _is_ this, because that Cole didn’t get to live. He's what that Cole wished he could be, living in his place so he could _have_ his wish, in the end. Even if he couldn't... you know, have it.”

“I didn’t know how else to help,” Cole says mournfully. It is a heartbreaking tone.

"That's... really kind of beautiful," Elden says.

"There are few things in the world as pure-hearted as spirits," Solas says quietly.

I can hear the bones of Cassandra's jaw as she grinds it together.

"...Wouldn't that make demons pure-hearted, too?" I ask, sincerely curious.

He considers. "By that logic, I suppose so. But it would perhaps be more accurate to say there is nothing so true to itself as a creature of the Fade."

Bull is tense and uncomfortable and churlish. Then a thought seems to occur to him. “Wait,” he says to Cole. “So you _could_ use magic. If you wanted to?”

“But I _don’t_ want to.”

Bull growls, and the subject is dropped.

 

 *

 

Cassandra insists Cole accompany her to fill our waterskins (I try not to think about what they’re made of if I can) when we stop briefly. After they have gone a good distance, I hear Cassandra speak to him using her “business” voice. I may be more or less a walking mountain, but I know that if she turned it on me again, it would make me quail just as much as it had the day we met.

“The others told me what you are, demon. You have been following orders. I expect that to continue. The Prophet believes you are harmless, but I do not. Nor will I ever trust you.”

“She doesn’t believe that,” he says innocently. “She knows what I am. I didn’t remember until I met her. Wouldn't have remembered, not until later. Everything is still tangled.”

“Yet she has vouched for you strongly. She claimed you were like her.”

“She knows I want to help. And she isn't like me, not really. But... she is. She sings better than anyone, almost like home. She said it because it made the most sense.”

I hear a breath through flared nostrils. “Know this: I will not allow you to harm innocents, and I am watching you. Closely.”

“Good. If I become a demon, you should cut me down.”

“Do not doubt me. I will do it.”

“I know. I’m glad.”

“You’re... serious, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I hope you are, too. Nua would do it, to protect people. But... not right away. She would wait too long, and I might hurt someone.”

“She seems to care for you,” she says stiffly.

“Yes.” I can hear a smile in his voice. “She wants to be my friend. But that isn’t why.”

“Then why?”

“She wants to fix us. If it was me, she would try, even if I hurt someone. I don't want to hurt anyone.”

“Must you always speak in riddles, demon? Who does the Prophet wish to fix? Our group? Thedas?”

“De--”

“Cole, _shut up,”_ I hiss, balling up a typhoon of emotion and shoving it at him. "Those are private thoughts!”

He pauses. “I... shouldn't say. But what if it goes wrong and you get hurt? It will make people sad and afraid. Angry. The whole world will hurt. And they _don’t_ want to change.”

“I’m sturdy, Cole,” I say so quietly that only Solas can hear. “I’ll be fine. And I don’t plan on doing anything horrifyingly stupid.”

“But you don’t know--”

“What are you talking about?” Cassandra demands angrily.

“I....” I imagine I can feel him floundering from here, and I feel horrible.

He sighs. “It isn’t your fault. I’ll be quiet. About this,” he adds when the feeling wells up in me that I don’t _want_ him to be quiet.

“...I don’t want to know what this is, do I.” Cassandra says.

“Yes you do,” Cole says, and he sounds confused. “But it _would_ make you very angry.”

 

 *

  

“You never have told me why you dragged me to Haven, Seeker. I mean, what could I have told the Divine that you couldn't say yourself?”

“I thought she needed to see the chest hair for herself.”

I nearly choke. Elden gives me what is meant to be a bracing pat on the back.

“Er.... Say again?” He asks, incredulous.

“I thought she needed to hear it from the horse's mouth, as it were. I also knew she would ask you to help us.”

“Help the Inquisition? _Me?”_

“A crazy thought, I know, yet here you are."

Bull has taken over for Elden. He gives me a series of whacks that should have me flying into a large rock in the middle distance, then effuses over the fact that it was basically like hitting a massive tree trunk. He doesn't catch the way Beast turns his head toward him and bares his teeth, just a little, as he's hitting me. The growl that rumbles deep in his chest is too low for him to hear, too.

“Mm," Varric is saying. "Think you'll ever go back to Nevarra? Maybe when all this is over?”

“Why? Are you eager to see me go?”

He scratches his broad neck thoughtfully. “I wasn't, actually. But, now that you mentioned it....”

“How do you know I wouldn't just drag you along?”

“Be still my heart. I've grown on you.”

“Like fungus,“ she says flatly.

“Or cancer,” Elden adds.

“Thanks for that,” Varric says.

 

 *

 

“How are you holding up, Kid?” Varric asks Cole. It warms my heart every time he reaches out or shows kindness to him. “You've been quiet for a while.”

“My shoelaces keep coming untied,” he says mournfully.

“You're doing fine,” he replies in a voice I can easily see him cultivating by talking drunk people out of doing exceptionally stupid things. Usually Hawke. Sometimes Fenris. There was no help, I imagine, for Isabella.

“Can you talk to them?" Cole asks. "They don't listen to me."

“I think that’s a question for the Prophet. But if you want my advice, don't talk to them, Kid. Just tie them in knots.”

“Try looping the second lace under instead of over. It keeps them from working themselves loose that way," I tell him.

“The rabbit goes _under_ the tree....”

"...That thing is distressing," Elden says. That she says it means she has more or less accepted him. I barely contain the swell of joy I feel enough that it doesn't hit anyone nearby.

 

* * * * *

 

Well after lunch, we go through the sort of emotional, sentiment-filled goodbyes you would expect from a group of seasoned warriors, and Solas and Elden finally depart. Cole has opted to go with Elden. The others look at me when he does nothing by way of asking permission. “What?” I ask dumbly. “He can do what he wants.”

Varric, Cassandra, Bull, and I are settled in a rock enclosure the size of a mansion that will become an Inquisition camp. It is in the heart of the area I cleared of “bears” the night before. There had been twelve of the things, which made me worry I was interrupting some sort of rut. I’d tried to avoid killing, but none of them had been interested in talking.

The will-be camp’s walls are high - it is a naturally-fortified piece of ground in a break where two gigantic rock formations abut, and is completely open the the “blue” sky above.

“...Are you fucking with me, Boss?” Bull is asking seriously.

I grin and give a little shake of my head. I can feel strands of hair start to shake loose from their bindings even at that small motion.

 _“A high fucking dragon?”_ He roars. Literally every small animal in over a quarter of a mile starts. The birds flee. Beast paws at the ground in irritation.

“Not a bad ‘welcome to the Inquisition’ present, huh?” I reply, grinning broadly.

“Not a bad-- Are you kidding me?” he ejaculates. There is no more appropriate word choice. He turns on the others. “Did you two know about this?”

“Not a word, Tiny. She doesn’t tell us much.”

“Taarsidath-an halsaam?” I ask with a self-satisfied expression.

“Oooohhoho,” he rumbles, and it is a universally R-rated sound that sets my pulse to hammering and the flesh between my thighs aching. “You bet your ass, taarsidath-an halsaam. Though I wouldn’t mind company. You know, in case it comes up,” he adds, with a quick glance to the apex of my thighs that lets me know he’s aware of my reaction. Beast snorts unhappily. I get the impression he wants to put himself bodily in front of me.

I want to make a joke about puns, but all I can do is look away and clear my throat tightly. Varric asks, “Do we want to know what that means?”

“You really don’t,” I reply. “And I wouldn’t tell you even if you did.”

He makes a noise of acknowledgement. “Thanks for _my_ welcome present, by the way. It was lovely. Really, you shouldn’t have.”

“We joined more or less at the same time. I’m the ‘Prophet,’ and you know what I got.” I nod toward my gloved hand, but that’s not all I mean. “Want to go halvsies? I wouldn’t want you to feel put out. Besides, I could have kept you dangling for months on the stuff I told you in exchange for Swords and Shields, and you know it.”

“I maintain that my editor would love you.”

“I maintain that I have never been so insulted.”

I am leaning up against one of the stone walls, drinking a hot cup of tea. I settle in as the others move to their own tasks - Varric and Cassandra seeing to their weapons, and Bull practically vibrating. There’s a little smile on my face, partially because I’m trying to ignore an itchy sort of feeling I can’t identify. It has bothered me since we neared this place, right around the time I caught my first whiff of the dragon’s nest.

(Two of) The others wanted to wait until tomorrow and hit the dragon well-rested and with a strong battle plan, but they rethink that when I tell them exactly how near she is. Her and her dozen or so offspring. Arguing stops when I say they’re welcome to move camp if they want, but I’ll be staying here, and I add that it’s bear country where we are. Would they really want to leave me defenseless?

What they haven’t argued about is going up against a high dragon with just the four of us - entirely suicidal, generally speaking.

My mind wanders of its own accord. It keeps wandering no matter how many times I bring it back, until I realize it’s going to the same thing each time. Off to my right and down through a natural rock tunnel, into a wide open space with a tall pillar of hexagonal basalt columns at its center. To bright lemon yellow, gray-green, a broad arrow head, fang tips and muscled legs and eyes with enough intelligence to know what it is to be an apex predator.

I hear a voice that is not a voice. It is the same as the one that told me ‘Trust your body’ as I stood at the lip of a cliff outside the first Inquisition camp. My brow wrinkles, and my eyes are far away. I push off the rock wall and set my cup on a nearby boulder, feet already following the path.

“Prophet?” Cassandra asks.

“Stay here,” I say as I move past. Varric and Cassandra exchange whispered words. Varric remembers a similar look in my eyes as I made my way, possessed, to a fox statue in the middle of nowhere.

“No matter what you hear,” I add, “stay here.”

There is a shuffling of feet and a metallic attention in the air, but they don’t follow. I cast an invisible barrier when I enter the tunnel anyway.

I walk on dancer’s feet, silent and alert. I can smell her. I can smell her young. I smell. . . .

_I smell fire, an old meal, play and squabbles, skin shed with growth. A family will kill any threat._

_I send my scent before me on a breeze, carried to all edges of the bowl and up to her roost, high and always watching. They stir, their heads move as one to the tunnel. I change my scent. Not food. Not a threat. Same, but not._

_I am air and earth and fire as I come into view. I move as roots, I exist as wind, my body is a banked, steady flame. It is their dance. It is what they know._

_Mother hops from her cliff to the tall pillar, claws making rock cascade, wings held half-spread, showing teeth, eyes death. What is this? Not food. Not danger, not now. Does it fear?_

_A rumbling clicking comes from her and she bares her teeth like mother wolf._

_I am not prey. Only prey would fear. Only weak would fear._

_She smells no challenge._

_I step away from the cave and into the open. I step away from escape and safety, away from the stink of the other nothings behind. Muscle lowers to sit on its knees, sure as stone._

_Mother rumbles._

_The boldest comes forward, a female, larger than the others. A male tries to follow, but she snaps him away. The males know their place._

_I am earth. No need to look at her. No need to see as she approaches. No need to worry as she sniffs at my neck, jabs me with her muzzle. She circles, shoving with shoulders and slicing with her tail, testing._

_‘Not weak,’ mother says. ‘Not weak,’ she agrees. Hesitant steps, then the others are coming forward all in a rush of stony muscle and needle-knife teeth, scales that cut and tails that break bones. I am immovable._

_Eventually, they get bored. Eventually, mother gets bored. I rise and make to follow as they leave. It is noted and permitted._

 

* * * * *

 

_There is yelling from the creatures behind. The smell worsens. I make it go away._

 

* * * * *

 

_The sun, warm and wonderful, is lessening. One of the creatures is climbing the rock to come here. Stupid things. Small. Breakable. But a feeling stirs--_

I stop, sharp teeth hooked around and under a jaw. They continue to play without me, and I’m jostled. I stand and, with a look toward the tunnel, start to walk away. ‘Mother’ notices, but there’s no reason to care other than knowing what’s happening around her. One of the smaller males tries to follow me. I give him a scratch where his neck meets his head and tell him to stay here. It isn't hard - this young, family is survival.

When I near the barrier, I cast it away and the smell that hits me is too much. I stagger. Adrenaline and anger, determination, worry, fear. A swamp of it. I let myself gag a little, then give a sharp whistle as I emerge. “Get him down from there before he breaks something,” I call.

“Thank Andraste,” Cassandra effuses. She is standing not far from where I had been drinking my tea, looking up at a garish pair of parachute pants and a broad, muscled, blue-gray back. He has almost reached the top. “What were you doing?” She asks. She’s not so much relieved now as she is starting to get angry.

“Making friends,” I say calmly as I take a seat in front of the fire. Cassandra and Varric come forward. I pour myself some tea as Bull undoes his climbing in a matter of moments and joins us, passing his palms against one another to get the debris off. “I didn’t time-travel, but I did learn something else I can do.”

They’re putting it together. I told them where the dragon was. But dragons don’t make friends. They kill things, and burn things, and pull the limbs off of things. But I have done the impossible more times than any of them can count in the last two weeks or so.

It’s Varric who breaks the silence. “You can’t be serious.”

I swirl what’s in my cup, then look at him from over its lip as I drink.

Bull is calm. But it is not a reassuring calm. Bull, right then, is more Hissrad than we have seen him.

“That isn’t--” Cassandra starts.

“Possible,” I finish, interrupting her. “I wonder how long before we all get tired of saying that.”

 

* * * * *

 

In the morning, the others argue against any plan other than trying to kill the dragons. They wake, they eat, they clean up, they pack up, and one by one stop fighting me on it. Bull is a strong hold-out, but he gets tired of arguing with two and being ignored by one. Cassandra and Varric are inclined to listen to me. Which is something, given that I’ve asked them all to do something that any child, gnarled mercenary, or breakneck adventurer would know is recklessly suicidal.

 

* * * * *

 

“This is the worst idea anyone has ever had in the history of ideas,” Varric whispers. “And I spent a decade with Hawke.” He doesn’t move his lips, as if afraid the motion will upset the dragonling currently gnawing on my thigh affectionately. Beast walks close on my other side, more tense and wary than afraid. He curls a lip at the little dragonling, but the creature is oblivious until he whacks it hard with his tail behind my back.

“Just stay calm and you’ll be fine,” I say with a smile, crouching down and running the backs of my nails the right way down his neck. He makes a low, happy rumble.

“There is a high dragon perched twenty feet away whose head is larger than many houses, and you want us to be calm?” Cassandra nearly hisses. Even as she speaks, the mother’s head is swiveling with almost imperceptible slowness, following our progress. She doesn’t blink.

“That’s why I said you should stay calm,” I say in a bright, happy voice, as if I’m play-talking to the dragonling. “They know you’re afraid, it’s coming off of you like clouds. But I vouched for you, so as long as you behave and don’t make any sudden movements, you’ll be fine.” I rise and carry on through the bowl, another of the nearly-black creatures following at my hip, nipping at my hand as I wave it playfully around its head. The one Beast whacked has taken to stalking his tail.

When the one at my side catches Bull looking down at it, it snaps at him and make a rumbling sort of hiss.

“All the animals you take a liking to this pissy?” He asks in a calm voice.

“Well I like you,” I say, relaxed. “I suppose that’s pretty damning.”

The “little” drake tailing Beast is watching him like a raven looking at a new toy. When it goes for his tail, Beast whips around and snaps at it, but the creature is undaunted. Beast is annoyed, but I have no intention of stepping in. It will be good for him to have to deal with something that can keep up with him. Part of me wishes we could bring one of the dragonlings with us.

Beast swats at its head, playful but too curmudgeonly to admit it.

This is when everything goes to shit.

The large female has been off in another area of the bowl. She happens to emerge just as Beast is going at her brother. She gives a shrill screech and surges forward.

The moment my friend’s hands twitch toward hilts and shafts, I shout at them to stop, but their reflexes are too slow. At their aggression, the other drakes turn on us, and the mother rears up on her hind legs, flares her wings, and _screams_ down at us. It vibrates in my bones, locks my flesh like an electric current. Beast half-rears, crying out. But as suddenly as it starts, there is a hush and a feeling of warm wetness in my ears and I don’t hear anything but a high, clear note, unending. I yell at the others to run, to go, and the feeling of air moving past my vocal cords is the only way I know I’m speaking.

I get in between the female and my friends, blocking her like a linebacker. She is almost as strong as Beast. I cast a barrier wide out to the sides of me so the others can’t get past, and something in me, something like my ara’lin, flares out, speaking without words. _Calm. Apology. Reassurance._ I fight for the mother’s attention to keep her from taking off after the others and I fight to keep Beast from putting himself between me and the dragonlings.

My friends have stopped, far too close, weapons drawn.

“Go,” I yell at Beast, silent to my ears. “Get them back!” Apparently I convey my urgency well, because he takes off and begins herding the others away, shoving, pulling on clothes when he has to.

Once they are out of sight and far enough that only the barest traces of their scent remain, the drakes begin to settle. It isn’t long after they quiet that one gets restless and snaps at the leg of another. That's all it takes, and then, just like puppies, the altercation is forgotten and they are off wrestling.

The mother is another matter. I look toward her, carefully not meeting her eyes. We have a silent conversation. The result is that I am still permitted, but if the others ever come back, they will be eaten, bitten in half, and/or burned until their skin is crispy and black.

This seems fair.

That settled, I try to convey to her the overwhelming numbers that will come for her if she and her children stay where they are. They are too close to people. She doesn’t care about people, but enough ants can take down a bison. I don’t tell her that if it comes to a fight, it will likely be us who kills her.

 

* * * * *

 

They start shouting at me the minute I come into view. I can’t hear any of it. Cassandra is nearly red in the face, Beast has run out to me and is nudging and sniffing over every inch of me, licking gently at my ears, Varric looks like he wants to stay out of it, and Bull.... Bull is looking at me oddly. Staring, more accurately.

When I get close, his expression deepens. He says something that makes the others look at him, then back to me, and their faces go slack. Immediately they are rummaging in their bags.

“What?” I ask, again feeling the vibration of sound I can’t hear.

Bull walks up to me until he is too close. He’s looking at me like... He’s looking at me in a way that has shifted from friendly to asking. Except Bull isn’t asking. He’s telling. And he’s worried. He tilts his chin until the bulk of him is wrapped over me, despite the air that is technically between us. He raises a hand and brings it to my face. My breath sucks in, my neck cranes back, my eyes are confused and wary. I know what I see, I know what I smell, but he wouldn’t, not in front of the others. He wouldn’t _period,_ not yet.

His hand doesn’t cup my face, doesn’t rest on my neck. A finger sweeps with surprising gentleness over the skin under my ear, then comes away. He holds it up to me and my eyes go wide. Light pink, mostly clear fluid. Instantly I am back to that first day when I woke with a concussion, internal bleeding, lacerations and bruises. When I was lucky to be alive. Just like I am now. The dragon’s cry punctured my ear drums. The damage could have been much worse. I cannot down the proffered healing potions fast enough.

 

* * * * *

 

We finish our business in the area that was cut off by the dragons. When we start to head back, it is with great surprise that we find the mother and her pack already gone. I can’t imagine to where - they roosted on the neck of a peninsula, and the young ones can’t fly. I can’t see fire drakes being fond of the idea of going for a dip in the ocean, but what do I know?

It takes the tension a while to leave the others. I want to say ‘I told you they were gone,’ but I don’t have much of a leg to stand on in the ‘trust me, everything will be fine’ department at the moment.

“You knew they would be gone?” Cassandra asks warily.

“I hoped. I told her they should go, but I didn’t know if they would. I could smell they were gone when we got closer.”

“You _told her?”_ Bull asks. It isn’t his banter voice. It isn’t his business voice. I think it’s my first taste of the way Hissrad must have sounded. “You talk to dragons?”

“She said she talks to clothes, Tiny. But I have to admit, this....  Uh, this is a little more impressive,” Varric says uneasily.

“I’m sorry, you guys. Really. It was just a misunderstanding. It would have been fine, if-- I should have....” I trail off. “I don’t know. I’m just sorry.”

“Not taking is through there in the first place might have been a good place to start, Prophet,” Varric says.

“I know,” I sigh.

“It is alright,” Cassandra allows hesitantly. It sounds like forgiveness. Wary, possibly shaken forgiveness, but still. “We should have listened more closely to you, I suppose. And we were able to destroy more of the red lyrium by getting past. The Inquisition will make good use of the supplies, as well, now that there isn’t a dragon standing in the way.”

“...I honestly never thought I’d say this,” Varric starts, “but... no offense, your holiness,” he says to me before turning back to Cassandra, “I think you’re being a little too nice. I mean, there are daring plans, and then there’s ‘come with me on a stroll through a nest of dragons.’ We should have just killed the thing.”

“Yeah, why didn’t we?” Bull asks, somber. “I don't get that part.”

I hesitate. “We’ve... hurt the world where I come from,” I say. I lay a hand on Beast’s shoulder as we walk, scratching idly. “People hunted things to extinction, a lot of things. They did it because ‘there are so many it won’t matter if we kill these.’ Or ‘killing this is manly and impressive,’ or just ‘It’s my right, I don’t have to care,’ or ‘it’s interfering with my way of life.’ Our world... there’s a saying, an old one. That all of nature is a web. You can’t upset one strand without the entire thing being affected. That from the air to bugs and frogs to druffalo and grass and swamps, everything is interconnected. We’ve learned the hard way that it’s true. Nature where I’m from is caving in on itself because we’ve done so much damage to it. And it starts with just one animal.”

I look in the direction of the nest behind us. “I don’t think there are a lot of dragons left in the world. As dangerous as they are to people and their livestock, as... ‘badass’ as it is to be able to say you killed one, I promise you that if you kill too many, the world will feel it in ways you couldn’t have conceived of. It probably already has, the affects are just too slow for us to see, or they’re somewhere we haven’t thought to look yet. But their consequences will show up, probably in a way that seems completely unrelated.

“Until someone tells me I’m not in charge, if a dragon isn’t an immediate danger, we’ll leave it alone. If it is, I’ll try to move it before I allow it to be killed. I'm sorry, The Iron Bull.”

 

* * * * *

 

We make camp in a little copse of trees that night. Tomorrow, we’ll reach the main Inquisition camp, the one that sits near the highway out of the region. We are done in the Hinterlands.

I’ve asked Varric for a word. To be polite to the others, I walk us a small distance away before putting up a barrier to ensure we can’t be overheard. Solas could be standing an inch away, and unless he can read lips - which I assume he can - not even he would pick up a thing.

“Big day, huh?” Varric asks. He’s been looking at me like he’s waiting for an outburst or a flood of tears. I can’t figure it out, and I don’t have the energy to speculate.

I sigh quietly. “Not the biggest we’ll have, I’m afraid.”

“Your compassionate lying still needs work.”

I huff a laugh and sit down in front of him. He’s only just taller than me this way. Maybe it’s rude, but I don’t care. I only did it to be comfortable, and if anyone can get away with a harmless faux pas, it’s the chick from another world. I pluck at pieces of grass, hunched over like Cole would be. “I asked you out here because you don’t dream.” He has no quip, so I go on. “You know I’m breaking away from the rest of you tomorrow. I’ve been chincy on details because... mostly because of the things that are after me in the Fade.

“Since you don’t sleep, I can tell you things without any risk of it getting passed on over there.” Pleasant night air pulls in to fill my chest, then I look up at him. “After tonight, I won’t be sleeping until I’m back in Haven, and I’ll be cloaked from any sort of magic. I’ll be completely off the map, and I’m not going to stop until I get where I’m going. I don’t think I’ll be there long, but I can’t say for sure. If I had to guess, it’ll be at least a couple of weeks until I catch up to you in Haven.

“In case people start to freak out, I mean really freak out over how long I’m gone or the fact that they can’t reach me, you can tell them I said to calm the hell down. But,” I say, holding up a finger, _“only_ to Josie, Leliana, Cassandra, and Cullen. _No one_ else is to find out,” I enunciate, my eyes serious, “and don’t give them a single detail unless it’s life and death for them to know. Once I’m back in Haven, I should be able to answer pretty much any question any of you might have. And I should be able to tell you almost everything I’ve been holding back.”

He’s quiet. Then there’s a huff. “Shit, kid. I’m not sure I wanted to hear that you’d been holding back.”

“Information. I mean--”

“Yeah, I know what you meant. Just... half the time this doesn’t seem real anymore. And I make weird shit up for a living. Who you are, what you are, the things you can do.... I don’t necessarily believe in the Maker, but you’ve got even me asking questions.”

I shake my head. “Gods are just another word for magic, and magic is the explanation we use for things we don’t understand. Well, that’s true on my world, where we don’t have magic. But the gods part is still good here. My point is, just because everyone is saying something doesn’t mean they’re right, and just because something seems too far out of the realm of possibility... well, gods make a convenient scapegoat for things we don’t understand. Just keep an open mind.”

He’s quiet again. “So what _is_ right, then?” It’s the most serious I’ve ever heard him and, unsettlingly, he looks like he trusts me to give him the answer.

“...After I get back.”

I ask him to get me a map from Harding while I have the others distracted, to swear her to silence, and we head back to camp.

 

* * * * *

 

“Boss.”

Bull has stayed out in the quiet, even after Cassandra and Varric went to their tents. I have been waiting for something from him, and it looks like I will get it sooner rather than later.

“Employee,” I answer.

“A while back, you said you wanted to ask me something.”

I look over at him in surprise. It takes me a moment to remember. It had been shortly after we’d met, and I’d wanted to ask him, worded with a little care, if I could touch him from time to time. It was exactly what I’d said the night I’d slept with him. ‘You’re good with boundaries and I never get to touch people.’ But that had been before I’d seen the look on his face today.

“Oh! Yeah. It solved itself, though.” I give him a dismissive, friendly smile, and he drops it. I don’t fool myself for a moment that he buys it, though.

 

* * * * *

 

I have failed to account for Beast in my plans. This is thrown into sharp relief by the tantrum he throws when I try to get him to go with the others.

“Maker, kid, just take him with you!”

“I--” I break off with a stymied noise. I plan to travel for about a week nonstop via Fade Step. I could probably keep him going by magic, _if_ he could tolerate basically living between worlds on top of not resting, eating, or drinking. I remember Seanna saying his breed had ties to the ancient harts, creatures who lived in a world of magic. But the only person who might stand a chance of physically forcing him to do something he doesn’t want to do is the one who’s leaving.

I curse under my breath and do some quick calculations. If all goes to plan, and if my time at the temple is quick, I should _just_ be able to make it back to Haven in time to leave for the meeting in Val Royeaux. Which of course means something will go horribly awry.

But what’s life without a little reckless negligence?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got the wolf story from firstpeople.us. There were three variants, and I tweaked the wording for brevity and context, but did my best to stay true to the spirit.
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> I swore to myself the next chapter would have the thing in it. Which ended up meaning that it was a bajillion words long.
> 
> The banter - It's disproportionate obviously, but in general, love it? Lose it? I put it in because I loved the game banter, but I'm uncertain because I've never seen game dialogue used in a fic that doesn't make my eyes glaze over.


	22. . . . Well, Shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for any confusion (and losing all those great reaction comments!! *_*), but a good amount of feedback has led me to believe that splitting this into multiple fics was just. . . no. So bring on the massive word count! Let's do this!

I shuck every piece of clothing but my undershirt and trousers, and I leave my weapons. I enchant Varric’s bags to hold more than they should be able to so he has room for them. No one argues against my traveling so light - something about the seriousness and focus of my demeanor seems to quiet them.

 

* * * * *

 

I pass near five rifts on my way. I’m tempted to stop and give Beast a rest - I can occupy myself prodding at the insides of demons again - but this has felt so long in coming that I won’t even entertain the thought of delay, not really. 

My world reduces to the “whump” of Beast’s heart and the deep hush of his lungs as I listen with obsessive attention for any signs of distress, the map that is well-worn by the end of the first day, and the magic of the Fade Step, over, and over, and over.

What they never tell you about adventures is how _boring_ they are. Like stakeouts. Ninety-nine percent of your job amounts to doing nothing at all. The planning for this was all urgency and intent and focus. I saw departing, and I saw arriving. The beginning of the journey was intent, too, as I took larger and larger leaps to let Beast acclimate to the magic. Plotting a course, seeing how far I could push us.

That all wears off in full sometime during the first night.

When I left, ten days had passed since Giselle told us the meet in Val Royeax was in less than a month. If my estimate is right, travel from the Hinterlands to the Arbor Wilds on horseback should take at least three weeks. I plan to cover the distance in a matter of days. But once I have the rhythm down - map, step, step, step, step, map, always with attention on Beast next to me - I have nothing to occupy my mind. For several straight days and nights.

If I get bored, I’ll get sloppy, which would be disastrous, so I focus on running over everything I’ve been told about myself, the questions I want to ask, and what each outcome - I am what Fen’Harel says, or I am not - might mean. For me, for the Inquisition, for the relationship with Fen’harel that may be balancing on a razor’s edge. I don’t let myself think on how badly everything could turn; The Dread Wolf is not a creature you want as an enemy. I run over theories and possibilities. I try to enter into a meditative state.

Going over the plains outside the Hinterlands is quick - sometimes I’m able to jump us several miles at once. Progress slows as we get to the Frostback foothills, and for great stretches the roads and paths are so winding and rock-lined that we have to travel at a normal pace. I’m not worried. We’ll make up time on the other side. I tell myself that, but in the back of my mind a worry pricks and pulls. My urgency to get to the temple only increases the closer we get, as does my fear that something is going to show up to block my path.

I start checking myself for signs of exhaustion after the third night, but find none. I’m feeding magic into Beast constantly, a thin, infinitesimal stream, but ceaseless. Every half hour or so, I sweep over him in detail with my extra senses, checking for cuts, nicks, burrs, muscles that are too stiff, tendons that are strained, signs of dehydration, anything. Bringing him was idiotic, but so far, he seems to be holding up as well as I am. Risky as it was, I can’t deny that the constant need to monitor his safety is a grounding thing. Thinking about what it would have been like to make the journey without that is an idea I don’t entertain.

When we reach the other side of the Frostbacks, it is like we have been fired out of a slingshot. At the crest, I can see all the way down the peak and at least fifty miles into the distance. For fear of what it might do to Beast, I break that distance into chunks, but still manage to cross in minutes what would have taken days of travel by normal means.

We reach the Arbor Wilds at dusk on day six. When I see its outskirts in the distance, I start shortening first the length, then frequency of our jumps to give Beast a chance to adjust. I will benefit from it too - with less disorientation - but I am not willing to push him as hard as I will push myself.

I managed a moment alone with Harding in the Hinterlands, and she told me the changes that would mark the start of the area - mostly the size, exuberance, and proliferation of green things. What she couldn’t have told me was how the smell would change - age, history, weight, and a sort of stagnant sorrow that almost holds its breath. The area is a massive, lightly slumbering cat with claws that could rend a mountain range. Nor could she tell me to expect the feel of old magic. It is not awake or alert, but slow, soft and vigilant. Woven through with expectation. It is like a place in the earth where two pieces of its surface meet. At any moment, with the slightest shift, it could tremble and screech, reshaping its world.

I pause long enough inside the tree line to do give Beast a rub-down as I do another thorough check of him. He feels jittery, like someone who has had a little too much caffeine or sugar, but his heart is steady, his eyes are alert and attentive - as good in the rapidly thickening darkness as mine - and his scent is _mostly_ calm. It is the best I can ask for.

The temple - or more probably the well - is a hum within the earth. I feel it through the soles of my feet, and following it to its source is effortless. It pulls at something in my chest, and I realize I am achingly sad. No. Almost heartbroken.

I feel the magic in the forest plucking in the air, like tiny, quick pops of light and sound. They pepper it the further in I go, growing faster and closer together until it is like walking through a cloud of thick, popping bubbles or spores.

I feel the first of them in the trees and cannot help but stop. Fen’harel was right: there is no mistaking this one for him or Solas. It is a woman, and she is a universe, full and whole, of her own.

My breath has gone shallow. As if sensing my mood, pulled tight like sinew, Beast waits patiently at my side. There is an _ache_ in my chest, and it is no more or less than the presence of a creature like me - one who wears its soul outside its body. A tremor like a shiver runs over me with the realization of much I have missed this thing I couldn’t have known I was without. The muscles around my knees flex with the desire to turn around, to face her. But I am not close enough to the temple yet.

The popping becomes a crackle that I push to the background by the time the twelfth of them joins his brothers and sisters in the trees. Mythal’s temple is near, but not near enough that they have felt the need to force me away. Perhaps they wouldn’t, I don’t know.

Twelve should be enough. It must be. They whisper to one another in silence, and I kneel slowly to the earth. I sit on my heels, back straight, hands in loose fists on my thighs, calm and looking forward. In a clear voice, I say, “I am here to speak to Abelas. I need his help. In exchange, if it is necessary, I bring news of Mythal.”

The air goes still. The crackling stops, the “voices” of their spirits stop. One drops to the earth on quiet feet behind the tree line and takes off at a run.

I do not have to wait long.

Abelas approaches openly, tall, proud, and seeded, drenched through with the truth of his name like oil saturating a cloth. I rise as he comes into view on the wide, overgrown road.

When he stops not six feet away, my eyes are level with his chest - he is at least as tall as Bull. I tilt my head up to meet his eyes. They are pale, and but for a yellow tint would match his skin perfectly. I can’t help the widening of my own eyes or the parting of my lips. He looks exactly like the elvhen in Fen’harel’s dream cities. Not quite human, certainly not elven, but something more. Power and elegance and connection gifted with a physical form.

“તમે શબ્દ હોય દાવો Mythal,” he says flatly and without introduction. "તમે કોણ છો?”

“I don’t speak elvhen.” For some reason, my voice is no louder than a breath.

His eyes narrow. “You claim to have word of Mythal,” he repeats, less hospitably than before, which is saying something. “Who are you?” he enunciates.

Something in my chest deflates, punctured. “Honestly, I was hoping you could tell me.” He does not react. “My name is Nuaelan. I don’t know more about myself than that. May I have your language?”

“You are elvhen. Why do you not speak it?” He should call himself “Flat and Unamused.”

“I don’t have my memories.” ‘I thought that might have been clear,’ I don’t add, but the thought is dry.

He regards me for what most would call an intolerable amount of time. It does not bother me. Eventually he asks, “Is that why you have the body of a quickling?”

My brows climb my forehead. I open my mouth, but sound won’t come out.

“How do you intend to take my language?”

“A spell.”

Amused disbelief is echoed in the trees all around me. Their numbers have swelled. Abelas gives something between a dryly amused exhale and a sneer. “By all means.” His voice is condescending challenge accompanied by a single, graceful dip of his chin. Him, his people, Solas. . . Fen’harel had not exaggerated when he had said elvhen were graceful.

The magic pulls effortlessly from him to me like a living thing.

“How did you do that?” he asks, and it is some mix of suspicious, incredulous, surly, and warning. Bodies tense in the trees around me, hands tighten around arrows. They are tipped with something, but I do not know the smell.

Rather than answering, I take my time to taste the language. It is water in all its forms, given voice. It is sheer, soft fabric in a breath of gentle wind, birdsong and growing trees, the clarity of air and the possibility of dance, if one could dance after leaving their body behind.

Fen’harel had been right again: I doubt I have ever loved anything more. It is like being set free.

I look up at him, unable to help the warm, fond, familiar smile on my face. Elvhen _fits_ in my mind, and for the first time, I can believe, I can’t _help_ but believe, to know down to my bones, that theirs is a world to which I had belonged. The tongue is mother and child to me.

I change over to his language - _my_ language. “I’m told I’m somehow a pocket of what the world was before the Veil. It doesn’t exist around me. Apparently,” I add with a slight, lopsided shrug.

His eyes travel my form, seeing what can’t be seen, until he can’t deny that it’s just as I say. His words go back to elvhen. “And do you know how this came to be?”

“. . .Nnnno. I don’t.”

“And how you lost your memories?”

“The question of the hour. I’ve been assuming it was whoever gave me this.” I hold my hand up, bare - no need for gloves here, and hiding myself would be disrespectful. I let the magic of the anchor flare to life.

Abelas’ eyes narrow almost imperceptibly. “That is the magic of Fen’harel. Of the Sprits’ Home.”

With a nod, I let the Mark sink and sleep and return my hand to my side. “Stolen from him and imbedded into me, yes.” There is no reply to that. After a pause, I try with some hesitance, “I came here to ask--”

“No. You will tell us what you have to say or you will leave.”

My brows shoot up at the utter and abrupt change in his demeanor. His temperament.

I take a steadying breath, bracing myself for shock from all sides. “Mythal. . . is alive.”

He looks at me flatly. “. . . And?”

“Wait. . . what? You _know?”_

“Of course we know.” He looks at me like I’m some kind of slow he had never thought to see. “We are sworn to her.”

“W-- I--” I stammer, trying to get back on my proverbial feet. “If you know she’s alive, why are you here?”

“It is our duty to be here. If she wished otherwise, she would tell us as much.”

It’s like he’s trying to educate me on why trees grow toward the sky.

“. . .Alright,” I manage. “Then I should probably tell you that an attack is coming. Your people won’t survive it.”

Abelas scoffs, derides. “Allow me to guess. You offer yourself to preserve the knowledge of the temple before another can take it by force?”

“No!” I practically cry, appalled. It is dangerously hard not to say “Ew.” “I have more than enough information I shouldn’t have already, thank you. And if there is a fitting host for it, I should think it would be found among you. I have no desire to go within a hundred feet of the well or to be so controlled by anyone,” I say emphatically. “But the attack is real, and it won’t be like anything you’ve faced before. You will be wiped out.” ‘Without aid,’ I don’t add. I don’t want to give him a thread to cling go. As if he would need it. “One of the humans who pierced the Veil and brought the Blight will come to drink from it and take use of the Eluvian.”

“You know a good deal for one who claims to have no memories.”

For a moment I’m flummoxed - can’t he see I’m not lying? But I remember Fen’harel telling me there were ways to deceive, even among. . . _our_ people. The very thought jars the reality I have built for myself.

“Memories and knowledge aren’t necessarily the same thing,” I say. “And I did just say I know a lot of things I shouldn’t. This is one drop in an ocean. His name is Sethius, but he goes by Corypheus - ‘The Conductor of Silence.’ He’s a megalomaniac, possibly literally unkillable, and he’s powerful. One of you should drink from the well, or find someone you think worthy before he has a chance to come. Just like his people, he will scour the world for any ancient elvhen power he can claim. I can send Mythal’s daughter, if you prefer. She’s kind of a bitch,” I say bluntly, “but she’d trip over her own feet to have it, and do a decent job of handling it. She was Mythal’s intended next vessel.”

Again, there is no reaction to the news. Again, there is a pause like the crossing of a lake so large the other shore can’t be seen.

“I will consider your words,” he says abruptly. No ‘how can I reach you if I want the daughter?’ Nothing. “What is it you want?” He is impatient, if an elvhen can be, to get me gone.

Again, my brows lift. I thought _I_ could be curt. “There’s one more thing, actually, something I thought you would want to know in case he hasn’t reached out yet. Fen’harel is awake, and he intends to restore the old world. I imagine if that can include Mythal, it will. I’m. . .” I pause, uncomfortable. “You know she isn’t who or what she used to be, right?” I ask gently.

I am met with silence. It is disdain, curiosity, annoyance at my presumption, annoyance that I’m still here and haven’t gotten to the point. I feel elvhen glad for the excuse to wake up. Mostly, I feel the flat call of a duty accepted as eternity, like a dark, still pool of water.

“All I mean is,” I press on, “the way she is now. . . to be frank, she may not care enough about any of you to give you new instructions. Not in the face of chasing her vengeance. I think that’s all she’s alive for anymore.”

Hostility this time.

I hold up my hands peaceably, both in body and in spirit. “I’m not telling you to insult you, or her. On the contrary. I just want you to know your options. You can sacrifice yourselves to protect this place, and I know you would, gladly, but if what you died to prevent happens anyway, which it will, what will have been the point? The Mythal you served in Elvhenan, the one you pledged yourselves to, the one I’m told cared for her people.” The stab of angry resentment I feel saying that does not help my case. “What would she want you to do?”

“We have fought off invaders before.”

“Not like this,” I reply immediately.

Eventually, Abelas asks, “Are you one of his? The wolf?”

I snort quietly and make to answer, but another voice sounds first.

“She was.” It comes from a tree close behind and to my left. Abelas’ eyes lift in an unmoving head toward the sound, and I hear a pair of strong, nimble feet landing on the cover of leaves and ferns, near-silent.

I gasp quietly and whirl around. An elvhen man, tall and lithe as a dancer, with long, fine, straight hair, stands in medium armor, a bow over his torso and a one-handed blade in his fist. It is held ready, but not aggressively. He is regarding me coolly, levelly. He is regarding me with familiarity.

“You knew me?” I breathe. My heart is racing.

“No.”

A crease forms between my brows. “W-- That’s why I came here. That’s the whole reason I came here. I have one memory of elvhenan, but I need to know if it’s genuine or if it was planted in me. I need to know who I am,” I say, naked desperation, pleading, entering my voice by the end. The language makes plain the fact that my motives are larger than myself.

The man looks over my shoulder to Abelas, then back to me when he nods. A gentle breeze blows strands of his gossamer hair. “I am Suledin. I was a member of Mythal’s inner circle before her murder. I was also a scholar of some renown. For that reason, I was summoned to her in great secrecy and great haste one evening, long after the Last War had begun.” He pauses, and his eyes on me are intense in a calm, relaxed face. “She wished my aid in a puzzle that was posed by a creature Fen’harel had brought to her.”

My eyes widen fractionally. I am not so much as breathing. He nods in confirmation, and something explodes through me, wiping everything I am away and leaving nothing more than a means of receiving his information.

“What am I?” I whisper, every tension and question and fear felt over the last weeks poured into the three words.

He looks at me a moment. “An abomination,” he says simply. “You are something that should have never been allowed to exist, the worst possible form of apostasy. I would have destroyed you on the spot had the decision been mine to make.”

For the first time, I feel something other than the wonder that is the other elvhen: the reality of the threat they pose. I may have been built to fight, I may have been made to outpace them, but these are people who have dedicated their lives to battle. I don't remember myself, and there are far more of them than there are me. Beast takes a step closer to my side and absently curls his tail through the space around my legs.

“You are the product of a Forgotten One, Daern’thal, according to Fen’harel. You were created for the sole purpose of destroying the Evanuris.” All things I had heard from Fen'harel myself.

There is anger from the elvhen around me as they shift in the trees, bordering on hostility. There is outrage. From some, there is excitement. Hunger and eagerness. I represent vengeance well out of their grasp.

“And. . . that is why I’m an abomination?”

“No. That was why you were a danger.” I wait until he goes on. “Thousands of spirits and demons were sacrificed - butchered, tortured, and dissected - to create you. To create the myriad failures that preceded you and eventually led to your creation.” Even after all this time, the very idea leaves him furious, disgusted, repulsed.

The breath whooshes out of me with an audible noise almost like a distant and detached moan.

“Daern’thal worked through ages of the world to perfect your creation. Your very nature is volatile, and I don’t care to guess how many failed versions he went through before your. . . ‘success.’ Parts of no fewer than eighty spirits went into your creation, but we never knew exactly how many. I would not be surprised to find out the true number was far greater. He pieced together beings of inherently opposing aspects, somehow forcing them into a cohesive whole. He even tracked down demons to add to your creation.”

The air is thick with the same abject horror I feel. Pieces of myself are falling away from the whole, disappearing from my awareness.

“Every part of you down the smallest was intentionally, purposefully crafted, and then honed and reinforced once you took life. You are not elvhen. You are a trained animal.”

Shards of memory come back to me.

 

Elden talking about my eyes glowing. _‘It was like they couldn’t decide what to be. Gold and white and purple and green, I think some orange, maybe blue.’_

How many times has Cole had said some version of _‘You are like me, but not.’_

A desire demon. _‘Would you like to know where you come from? Would you like to know what you are? The answer would surprise you.’_

 

And from the dreams I’d had after attacking the Breach.

 

Mythal saying _‘Wild magic is always unpredictable.’_

 

Memories of my own thoughts, thousands of years past, maybe tens of thousands, come.

 

_‘I have a people, but I am not one of them. Even most of the Spirits don’t know what to make of me.’_

_’Whispered words behind hands and around corners. They do not realize how well I can hear, better even than them. I was made to be better. “Abomination.” “Daughter of monsters.” “Why does he tolerate her?” “Blight.”’_

 

Memories of Fen’harel.

 

_‘He loathes almost everything about me.’_

_‘I want someone who doesn’t want what I am, but_ who _I am. And Pride, Pride does not care what I am. Not beyond the disdain he treats me with for it. At least it does not disgust him like it does most others.’_

 

A conversation I now understand is Fen’harel talking to Daern’thal.

 

_‘I have no wish to participate in your experiments, and you know I abhor receiving one of the People as a gift. They are not things to give.’_

_‘But they are toys to play with, no?’_

_‘Not like this.’_

 

Suledin goes on, carving deeper the hole I am sucked into, like quicksand that is savoring the process. “You were given anything that might aid you in getting to and destroying the Evanuris. You were stronger and faster than a any _normal_  elvhen. You had more endurance. Your reflexes were unparalleled.” His eyes swept up and down me as he spoke. “Your connection to the Fade was. . . odd. How was nearly undetectable, and the way it was altered was something we did understand.

“You had no personality, not truly. No self. You were an amalgamation of whatever was required of you from moment to moment. You were whoever you were told to be, or whoever you needed to be, to get a job done, to win someone over. . . .” He pauses, then goes on in a quieted, almost thoughtful voice. “For a time, we thought it was you who killed Mythal.”

“But. . .” I shake my head. “No. Evanuris can’t be killed.”

“An unimportant detail, apparently. Murdering any one of the gods would have caused chaos in elvhenan. Mythal was matched in power only by Elgar’nan, and it took her thousands of years to collect enough of herself to find a host. It would have been more than enough time for Daern’thal and his like to move in.

For a long, long time, all I feel is the bodies in the trees around me and my own breath. All I can hear is the distant, sanded thud of the strong heart at my side and the steady, deep rhythm as he breathes. I allow my hands to ball into loose fists. I look back up at Suledin.

“Wh--” My voice wavers, and I clear my throat. “Why were you called? What was the 'puzzle' I presented?”

Something in Suledin’s eyes shifts in a way that has me feeling uneasy. Uneasy the way a goat must feel before a lion jumps onto its back from an outcrop overhead. I do not react. Not my face, not any muscle he can see, and not my ara'lin. It is cool, alert, and placid, eager and aware, just as it has been since I arrived. I understand now, how we could have lied to one other when our emotions were as apparent as our bodies. People are oceans of feeling, fleets of vessels on a sea, and I can reorder them however I like, pull any of them to the fore, push any to the back. I know I am hiding my reaction, I  _know_ I am, and yet somehow, Beast seems to feel enough to tense.

“The challenge you posed, to my Lady, was not what you were so much as one uniting strand woven through every broken, misshapen piece of you: the compulsion to obey. To follow unerringly any command given by Daern’thal. No matter the order, you had no choice but to carry it out exactly, perfectly as intended. Apparently you and Fen’harel had been looking for a loophole for some time. There was none to be found. Daern’thal could command you do to and be literally anything.

“It was in everyone’s interests to free you from his will. When it was determined impossible, I was asked to bind you instead to Fen’harel.”

I nearly rocked on my feet at the force of my shock. I shook my head in denial. “Taking away a creature’s free will goes against everything he stands for, everything he believes.”

“It was the better alternative. And your idea. One you argued for passionately.”

“But he _agreed?”_

Suledin gave me an oddly probing look. “Reluctantly. But yes. Eventually. As I said, it was the better alternative. Neither he nor Mythal wanted to see you put down, and that seemed the only option left.” His regret and disappointment practically seep into my pores. "It did not work."

I lean into Beast’s side. The physical reality of him is grounding. His heat through the thin fabric of my shirt, the expansion and retraction of his side with every breath. He turns his head in toward me, half hiding me from sight, his eyes on Suledin and Abelas.

My world narrows to the questions I want to ask. Remembering them. Holding them. Making them leave my throat.

“Why do I look so young? If I am who you say I am, I’m _not_ young.”

This, at least, seems like a weightless answer to give. “You are not in your correct body. But it, too, was made to appear youthful. In our time, it - youth - was a fleeting thing. One who could maintain its appearance,” of me specifically he lingered on, ‘in face, not in body,’ “was considered. . . exotic. Appealing. Two things the evanuris prized.

“Everything about you was made to draw them in. For Ghilan’nain you were given the gift of skill with beasts.” I saw a massive, wide, bright yellow head watching from a cliff as her drakes shoved and tested me. “For Andruil, ferocity and prowess in battle. The instincts of a born killer, of a hunter. For our Lady Mythal, a strong sense of justice and right and wrong. None of us knew the extent of your abilities.

“Fen’harel’s motives could often seem inscrutable, but the greatest mystery was his adoption of you. We valued spirits more, in many ways, than our own people. Some more than others. None more than Fen’harel. What he must have seen every time he looked at you. . . .” His voice trails off and again his eyes sweep me.

Leandra. I am the horror of what was left of Leandra after the Butcher finished with her, but a hundred times over. A thousand.

Something painful in my chest contracts so fiercely I can feel it all the way up into my jaw. I swallow thickly. The air has turned to stone. Every eye, every life hanging freely in the air, is damning, and for an instant, I think I almost remember how it felt to exist back then. Hated. Derided. Loathed by literally everyone. Even Fen’harel. The only exception was the man who had created me with the thought that I was not, and was never, intended to be a person.

“When your design was perfected,” Suledin said, and he sounded almost musing, “you were sent to Fen’harel. The hope, we assumed, was that he would provide you with the access you needed to begin your. . . work.”

My eyes fall from his face and go far, far distant. I want nothing more than to turn into Beast and rest my forehead against his side. Instead, I ask in a voice that sounds almost unaffected, “Where is my body?”

He cants his head in confusion, and I return my eyes to his face.

“You said I wasn’t in my correct body. So where is it? And what is this?” I ask, gesturing to myself.

For a moment, he wears something that resembles amusement. “You misunderstand. You look the way you do because you wish it. When you desire to return to your proper form, you will.”

I narrow my eyes as my brows pinch together. “How?”

He chuckles now, and it is amused, but also a little incredulous, as if I’m a small child asking why mum and dad smoosh their faces together sometimes. “You are, as you say, what our world used to be. What it should be still. Will it.”

The presences around me turn expectant and interested. I cast a wary glance at Suledin, then Abelas - only to find he has departed without my notice - and close my eyes, counting on my own instincts and Beast to watch all of them. Gratitude at my “luck” in being forced to bring him swells again in me.

The concept seems simple enough. It is literally what elvhen could do in their time, right? Will things into being. So I imagine myself larger, different like they are. I imagine finer, more handsome, almost alien features. Grace and strength. Power. A strange right to exist in this or any world. A rightness, a connection no one else could understand. I wish myself into that form, that state. And I feel a change. It is instant, but I _feel_ different.

I open my eyes and find Beast several feet lower than I am used to. Instead of the massive draft horse that must be part dinosaur, he is more the size of the other mounts I am used to. I am the size of a qunari, maybe more. I cannot help the incredulity on my face as I turn back to Suledin, who is now perhaps no more than two inches taller than me - and he is the tallest here.

Despite himself, he smiles. “Better,” he says.

I look at him, wary. I feel the inevitable crescendo of this meeting welling, but I won’t hurry my way to it. I won’t risk losing this chance.

“Thank you,” I allow quietly. His spirit acknowledges the words, and I take a breath, glancing down at one of my hands as I flex it experimentally. I can’t help it. It is as different from the one I have become used to as a puissant, perfected vine or flower is from scrub brush, cascading around an ancient tree, feet rooted in the heart of the world.

“Fen’harel and I. We were. . . friends?”

“Yes.”

Relief like mercury and arctic water flushes through me and I close my eyes against the feeling. I don’t have to ask if he and Fen’harel were close; there is no trace of him in Suledin’s spirit.

“It was my understanding you did not begin that way. But after the war began in earnest, that seemed to change. It was why he took you to Mythal for help. He did not wish you sacrificed.”

I nod absently let my gaze turn searching, cast down and away. “What did Daern’thal look like?”

“Whatever he wished. The Forgotten Ones did not limit themselves to single forms. All elvhen, eventually, could change their shape, but had the courtesy to keep it to a few around others. None but the Evanuris were permitted to magically alter their bodies, just as certain forms were forbidden to all but the gods.”

Helpful. “Can you think of any reason large numbers of demons would hunt me in the Fade? They seem to want to subdue, not kill.”

His ara’lin contracts like the eye of a cat in full light, and he gives me a look I cannot read. It is a disconcerting sensation. He looks down, thoughtful, and eventually replies, “No.”

I sigh quietly. He, they, are patient as I cast around for anything else he may possibly know. There is nothing. So as my ara’lin begs him, soberly, to consider my warning about the well, I open myself and let in the final act.

“You want to hurt me,” I say calmly.

He smiles fractionally. “I wouldn’t put it that way.”

My expression does not change. “Let me clarify: it is your belief that I should not exist, and you wish to rectify that.”

His smile broadens. It is echoed in the trees, and I know I am missing a joke. “I do. But there is no point. Not now.

‘?’

“The world is dead, da’lan. What is there that is left to save from you?”

A chill ices over my bones, but I do not let it show. My attention on every one of them, I ask, “So you see no problem in letting me leave unharmed?”

I receive no reply. I receive no clue. I understand it as an affirmative anyway.

“And you intend to do that?” I ask slowly, carefully.

He smiles fully, and it changes everything about his countenance. He seems a different man, beautiful, fair. His is a face made for smiling. With a jut of his chin he says, a laugh in his voice, “Go. See what trouble you can cause.”

‘But do not harm Mythal.’ It does not need to be voiced.

Silently, I offer my respect and gratitude. Spirit pulled around myself politely but every bit of my attention on my surroundings, I turn and walk away. I do not stop until the Arbor Wilds is gone, eaten by the distance, and the sun is painting the sky in watery pink. I take us far from any road, far from any trail, to a fresh creek surrounded by lush grass, and I tell Beast to rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 10/15/17: Took out a bit of information it was too early to give (you won't notice its absence if you've already read the chapter), and fixed a bunch of ooc Nua stuff in her talk with the scholar. Also added the bit about certain shapeshifting stuff being off-limits to non-gods.


	23. . . .Well, Double Shit.

Solas is pacing.

Solas does not pace.

Wisdom leans against a bookcase, all curving lines and silvery wood. It is smiling at him, a thing soft and secret, its deep emerald glow contained in favor of a form that appears more physical than anything - an ability gained with great age.

Memory leans its back against Wisdom’s arm, looking for all the world as if its mind is in a far-off place. “I never liked this room,” it says in a voice like deep chimes. Its silvery light brings out shining flecks in the wood of the bookcases, like chips of gem. Gold pulses softly through its body as if thunderclouds seen from a great distance.

“Do you believe her to be in danger?” Wisdom inquires patiently. He has had enough time to fret. A pastime he indulges in too much.

“No,” Solas answers readily. “Even in her diminished state, she is capable. She is cautious. She may well be the strongest being in this world, for all I know, and though there is much she does not remember, I would pity any creature foolish enough to attack her. Any normal creature,” he amends.

“Ah,” is all Wisdom says. It smiles again. It is not that the word “No” is a lie. It’s that it does not assuage his _fear_ that it is.

 _“I do not understand,”_ Solas says.

He so rarely lets frustration show. He so rarely feels it anymore. Not like this. Neither spirit has heard it since before the Fall. It makes Memory uneasy. No one would fault it for the feeling.

“Calm, Dread Wolf,” it says seriously, silently echoing all the different meanings of “Harel.” _Trickster, Betrayer, Feared, Rebel, Dreaded._ It ripples out gentle warning of what happens when the god he was and still is, underneath, loses his patience. It reminds him of the worth of action slowly laid.

Solas laughs, a derisive exhalation. “This world does not know patience, and she does not remember what was. She has lost _everything."_   Sorrow nearly ripples from him in waves. It would in the waking world. Here, now, there are too many demons. An exact reflection of how broken this world is.

“She is nearly as bad as the quicklings,” he says. “The pieces fit together. I am certain of it. I simply cannot make the proper connections.” Her disappearance after Mythal was killed. Her reappearance now. His magic in her hand. The hunt for her in the Fade, her missing memories, stories of an alien world, her love of Fen’harel and her loathing of Solas, and the scar in her mind that keeps the two separate. The changes in her, so many changes.

“I do not have the time for this.”

He nearly laughs.

Were all of that not enough, he _misses_ her, and what a strange thing that is. It is an omni-present ache in his chest, as if she represents everything lost. He seeks to remake the world, to repair it, to restore all that was lost, and he cannot even get _her_ back. It is a distraction he does not need, not if she is gone. But there is a spark in her, a spark of the old, buried. She does not see it, but he does.

Their time in the Fade is not enough. If he could speak to her as himself--

He cuts the thought off sharply. He does not know how she tolerates it; even if she remembers nothing, her biology is still elvhen. To be so near her and forced to keep his distance. . .

He is not a creature of luck. He does not believe in it, and if he did, he has not been in its fortunate graces for a very long time. This is simply a fresh wound (he is surprised he can still feel them) and each time he sees it sealed, it is re-opened by some small word or gesture.

His mind goes obsessively back to what he now knows was the appearance of _this_ her in the distant past. He remembers how it happened, how he was first vexed, then curious, then intrigued. . . .

He remembers another version, as well, this version, where the visit was cut short by his present-day self.

He remembers Fellassan, so like her in so many ways. Another friend, though he has no right to use the word. Nuaelan knows Fen’harel killed him, but he has been too much a coward to tell her precisely how close she and Fellassan had once been.

For all he was lauded as the rebel leader, the Breaker of Chains, he knows well that particular streak of cowardice. He was not Courage.

Fellassan had a way to see puzzles from new angles in ways not even Nuaelan could.

He is so close. And he is so far.

A theme, recently.

“Have you given more thought to Daern’thal?” Wisdom asks peaceably.

Solas finally stops with a sigh. “Yes. He or any other Forgotten One, any Evanuris for that matter, would explain all of this. There are few who would have the power and knowledge to do what has been done. But Daern’thal is dead, his soul destroyed, and I have checked the remaining prisons myself. They hold as strongly as ever. I even briefly considered Corypheus.” He nearly laughs at the idea. “But even if none of that were the case, there are too many outliers for me to be certain.”

He conjures a chair, rich and fine and an aching piece of home, and sits. It is a relief, speaking like this. As himself. Speaking with Spirits, with those lacking selfish investment in the waking world. He may wear fewer masks, hold behind fewer walls, and he can shed for a time the role of simple apostate. In an appropriately warded area, of course.

He does not need this complication. Neither does he need more questions without answers, more distraction, and she is becoming nearly every form of distraction. Worrying over her, worrying over her state. Worrying about the Mark’s effect on her. Worrying about the trials she is certain to face. She is competent, she is is resilient, but she has seen nothing of this world, and whether she knows it or not, he fears the pain of it will affect her. There is also the ire he feels every time the Qunari makes overtures or the blood speeds to the surface in the former templar - if there is such a thing - when they speak in the Fade.

No. It is that she reacts that bothers him. They are not real, not truly. They are small things. Growing to care for one would only hurt her, in the end.

Part of him wishes he could simply cut her out of all of this, banish her back to wherever she has been these many thousands of years. But she may yet have a part to play. The selfish part of him does not wish it, and her presence is too easy to justify. She knows war. She knows the ugliness, she knows sacrifice and brutality and death. Solas has always known he will finish this journey utterly alone - he will allow no other to make that sacrifice, to bear the weight of that burden. But there is so much more to do before the end, and it is so easy to have missed her, now of all times.

It does not hurt that she is more that woman he met in the long-distant past than she ever had been before she disappeared. Defiant, sharp-tongued and flippant, often irreverent. . . but compassionate. Softer than he would ever have thought her capable, a creature of empathy and kindness. He cannot count the years wasted trying to figure out how to bring that woman out again. There had been times it had been an obsession. He can only be grateful he was able to anchor her in this time, now; the man he used to be would not let her be a second time. She was a puzzle, a power, prideful and arrogant. . . .

Beautiful. Passionate. Determined, stubborn, wise and insightful. Thoughtful in her actions.

Distracting.

And now here she is, thrown into his path, and she will not so much as glance at him without suspicion and disgust.

All the better. He is not the man he once was.

The kiss had been inexcusable and ill-conceived. He had simply. . . for a moment he had simply. . . forgotten.

No. There is no need to think on it, no reason. Dwelling on it will serve no purpose.

Memory’s fingers move, just a little.

Nuaelan is diminished now, as Solas is, but not nearly so much. Even with the power of his foci, were she to side against him, it could, _would,_ change the landscape of everything he has planned. If he can learn how to harness her nature to regain his own power, if it could be used to somehow alter his plans. . . .

It is unlikely. But it is an idea to consider.

He allows his head to drop into one hand as his friends watch on.

She would have been perhaps the being he trusted most in all the world, and now. . . now she may be his greatest threat.

He will bury this pain - this complication - with the rest. He is afforded no other option.

All he can do is wait, as ignorant as the everyone else she travels with, until she chooses to return.

Perhaps then, Fen’harel should begin pushing.

 

* * * * *

 

I sit among vibrant grasses that bend under their own weight. I find a place between asleep and awake, a sort of meditation. My mind stays with me in the waking world, but my body goes heavy and dormant. The chaos burrowing its way through me proves an excellent focus.

I could deal with it. I could shut it out or exercise it away. But without knowing if I’ll have enough time to finish the process, starting is pointless. Doing that kind of work distracted isn’t in my wheelhouse.

The air slowly warms and thickens. Creatures bed down, others stir.

When Beast nudges me, shadows are long and the air golden with twilight. Strands of his dark hair mingle with mine where they have loosed themselves from their tie. I assume a gnat has flown past half a league away. Abruptly, I have had enough of the annoyance.

I stand and run my hands over my scalp. Magic turns the webbing between my fingers to blades and great shining clumps fall away, glistening like satin as they bend through the air. I keep my eyes closed and my heart in the earth. When it is all gone, I feel as if I have shed the weight of stones.

Strands wave from the grasses as we walk away, like bits of glinting spiderweb.

 

* * * * *

 

For a moment, all anyone does is stare dumbly at Cassandra.

“You can’t be serious,” Cullen says from across the fire. He is dressed down for the trip, but only slightly- still in the armor of his station, but the adornments, anything that would hinde travel, are packed away. Underneath, he currently looks a little white.

“Why would I make it up?” She replies flatly.

“Dragons don’t make _friends,”_ he protests. The very notion is ridiculous. “They’re ill-tempered and territorial. The aren’t mabari, they’re not horses or housecats. What they _do_ is eat or burn anything that happens to be nearby.”

Cassandra looks at him, and she almost seems annoyed.

“People don’t really drop out of the sky with weird, hellish-portal-closing magic in their hands and the ability to do impossible shit as easy as we breathe, either,” Varric points out.

The Iron Bull hums quietly, a little rumble in the back of his throat. He’s sitting between Cassandra and the Commander around the fire. Varric is to his right and the new guy, the Warden, is on his left. Solas, Leliana, and the Kid are across from him. (The spymaster has been watching him since they met on the road. She’s good - most people wouldn’t have a clue she was doing it.)

The two others they brought, a templar friend of the Commander’s named Kerry (stronger and faster than you’d think looking at him, old injury in his left ankle, eyes aren’t as good as they used to be) and the blowhard Chantry clerk (exactly as soft as he looks) are a little way off in their tent for the night, probably trying to pick up every soft-spoken word. Whether someone ordered him to do it or he took it on himself, Kerry has been keeping the clerk busy. For which he should get a medal and a free week at a brothel.

“You’ve killed dragons before, right, Seeker?” Bull asks. “I’ve heard stories.”

“Yes,” she says, reticent. “. . .Technically.”

“Yeah I’m pretty sure there’s no ‘technically’ when it comes to killing a dragon. Either way, not as many as the Commander, eh?” He makes it sound like a companionable jab. He looks at the man. “The way you talk. . . man, I hope you let me pick your brain later.”

Solas and Leliana pick up on what he’s doing immediately. Varric is only a moment behind.

“I don’t have to have written a dissertation on them to--!” Cullen sighs and folds, his forearms dropping to rest on his legs. “I apologize, Cassandra,” he says wearily. “Of course I believe you. Just. . . .” He looks worn, even for him.

“. . .I believe I understand,” Cassandra replies at length, and not without sympathy.

‘How much more can there be? How many more surprises? How long before we can find the ground under our feet again?’

“And yet she insists she is not divine,” the Seeker goes on.

“Not technically,” Leliana interjects, thoughtful.

“Ehhh, not to ruffle anyone’s feathers,” Varric says, “but she made an argument against gods being anything but excuses for things we don’t understand.”

“A valid theory,” Solas says. He sounds intrigued. Or approving. Maybe both. He lets his eyes linger on her just a little too long, sometimes, and after all, he travels with some sharp people. “The unknowable is always more palatable when given some form we can reconcile against what we know. I have seen it in ancient civilizations in the Fade.”

Those who are uncomfortable with his casual mention of his otherworldly journeying do the courtesy of hiding it. Most of it.

Leliana thinks the idea of the Prophet having said that is. . . fitting. After all, the last time mankind was given a true answer, they martyred her. Perhaps He seeks to intervene in a less direct manner now. Or perhaps His motive is completely inscrutable. Rumors have been circulating that Nuaelan is not a Prophet at all, in fact, but the Daughter of the Maker himself and his earthly Bride. Leliana does not necessarily disbelieve them, and she and Josephine have certainly done nothing to discourage them. It isn’t a tactic Cullen has approved of, but that is why Cullen is only in charge of telling their soldiers what to hit and when.

She doesn’t know what to make of this other world the Prophet claims to come from, but they have all been working on whatever degree of faith they have, whatever shape or face it takes, waiting for the time the Prophet said she would be able to answer their questions. It is something to work toward amid their greater mission and, if Leliana is being honest, something she cares about much more, at least personally. At least for now. It isn’t a thought she is proud of, but she has had little to be proud of for many years, except how good she is at accomplishing whatever must be done.

A small knife of suspicion is wedged in her shoulders, though, that what the Prophet will have to say when at last she can speak freely will do little but create more questions than it answers. Such is often the way of these things.

Alaine was never this complicated. Justinia was not this complicated. But then, the world has seen nothing like the Prophet since the time of Andraste. It has forgotten the way of miracles. She knows this.

Just the thought of her friends makes what is left of her heart ache.

Cassandra looks over at Varric. “She said this while we were apart, I take it?” He nods, and she looks into the fire. “We had very little time together after our two parties rejoined. She has not seemed eager to speak of it. She will answer any question asked, even if it is only to say she cannot answer for now. But about this, she is evasive. She ends up speaking of philosophy, or of the nature of God and man, or of faith and different ways to see the world.”

“Perhaps she does not know the answer,” Solas says simply. He glances at Leliana. “What was it she said to you when first you spoke in the Fade? Some of it had to do with this very topic, if I am not mistaken.” He isn’t, of course.

“She said she does not to know whether there is any God at all,” Leliana supplies, “but that if there is, its will and nature are likely unknowable.”

The Warden, Blackwall, grunts his assent.

“But that _isn’t_ an answer,” Cassandra protests.

“Is it not?” Solas asks. “She is blunt, sometimes cuttingly so, but on matters of great importance to others, she has shown herself to be kind. Perhaps even gentle. And she is at times. . . overly precise. Or perhaps literal-minded would be a better way to put it. She will not give an answer she does not have, and if she does not have it, how else would you have her tell people to whom that answer matters so very much? Particularly when the mantle of being the voice of your god embodied has been thrust upon her?

“She is a stranger here,” he goes on. “All the more because she knows so much she should not, because she is something this world does not and, I suspect, cannot understand. She remembers nothing of herself, not truly. She relies heavily on that preternatural knowledge, but it is not infallible. She trusts too readily, accepts too easily. She is like a student who has read about the world, studied it extensively while locked alone in a room, and now she has been thrust into it and expected to fix its many complex problems. To answer questions such as these, for which no civilization in history has been able to find an answer.”

The Iron Bull is soaking this up. The only think you can ever be sure of about the quiet ones is that they’ll surprise you. He has known Solas is the watchful kind - he does nothing to hide his intelligence - but seeing him put this together on the fly is. . . informative.

“She claims to be older than she appears,” Solas continues, “but I fear that in many ways, she is a great deal younger. And even we, the only people she knows, the ones here to guide and support and protect her, have done little but ask of her. Tasks, leadership, knowledge and secrets.” He pauses. “Had she not shown herself to be of such strong moral character, I would not find myself at all surprised to learn this trip of hers was simply an excuse to flee. Nor would I blame her for the decision.”

No one has a reply to that. Eyes drift away, thoughts traveling over dozens of different branches. There are small creases pinching between more than one set of eyes, downturned lips, fingertips brushing together idly. The only sound is the crackling of the fire.

An obscenely loud snore from Kerry and Roderick’s tent punctures the quiet.

Cullen clears his throat. “I suppose the fact that none of us even considered the possibility says all we need to know about her. We must all do better,” he says quietly. “In any case, speculating is pointless. Hopefully she will be waiting for us in Val Royeaux.” He looks to Cassandra. “Let us have the rest of the tale.”

 

* * * * *

 

“Maker, but she doesn’t sound real,” Blackwall remarks. “Or even possible.” His voice is honeycomb and the rough bark of forest trees and the flex of hard muscle as it labors. “If I’d heard this anywhere else, I’d assume someone was trying to impress a woman.”

He wants to say more, but what else is there, really? She _doesn’t_ sound real. He has to clamp down on the pace of his heart every time he thinks about the prospect of meeting her. He’s an utter fool to have come at all, and yet here he stays, day after day, night after night, marching with the only people he thinks may actually be able to save the world, from the blight in the sky if not from itself. Here he is, walking toward a woman who can stay the hand of a high dragon and wrestle Qunari warriors to the ground, who speaks like an oracle and apparently knows every last thing about him. Utter folly.

He tells himself that if it’s all true, if she knows everything they say, she would have simply sent people to lock him up. But she didn’t. She sent people to ask for his help. Singled him out. And the people who had come had called him “Warden Blackwall.”

It is hard for most to believe how little time has actually passed since she woke after stilling the Breach.

Cullen is convinced she has something to do with how well he’s been sleeping. There have been some bad nights, yes, but he is better rested now than he has been since he was eighteen. He’d think perhaps it was just being around her - there’s something calming about her - but aside from the fact that he _hasn’t_ been near her all that much. . . he wonders. If she can shape the Fade. . . . No. She is kind, but why would she spend her nights guarding his dreams? She trains when she sleeps.

He remembers one dream in particular and feels the bite of panic. Maker, if there is any chance she might have seen that, he may literally never be able to look her in the eye again. He can hardly look _himself_ in the eye. Even if she is as old as she claims, he has no right to. . . he can only finish the thought with a mental disgusted noise.

The Prophet warned Josephine against the House of Repose. She tipped Varric off about a murderer trying to frame him and outed his skimming publisher. Asked about Bianca, asked him to pick up a dead serial that Cassandra is secretly in love with. She gives the most obscure clues and instructions, only for the others to find out later that they were seeds planted early to ripen at the precise moment they are needed.

No one argues with Blackwall’s assertions.

Thoughts of what most certainly would have gone wrong had she not been here is utterly terrifying.

 _She_ is utterly terrifying. Especially to the few who have any idea what she is capable of.

As for the Iron Bull, there has been little true communication between him and Par Vollen - he hasn’t risked using code, and won’t unless it’s an emergency. The Spymaster is too good. But there has been enough, particularly when he had access to dead drops in the Hinterlands. He used them only when Solas was away.

His leaders are every bit as concerned as he assumed they would be. For now, all he can do is follow the last instruction he was given. He’s finding it more fun that he might have thought he would, at least. There’s something about her that’s tender and sincere. It was novel at first. Now. . . well.

It’s like she’s more than one person, sometimes, actually. Too many conflicting things that manage to fit together all the same.

Her kind of youth doesn’t usually do it for him, but he believes it when they tell him she’s said she’s not as young as she looks. There’s nothing young about her eyes. And if you look at her from the neck down - which he does often - there’s nothing young about her at _all._

What’s perhaps most unnerving is how much they have all come to rely on her. And not just the people who traveled with her, but the advisors, seemingly random people in Haven and the Hinterlands who have benefitted from her pinpoint-accurate help. How she shows up, or sends someone in her stead, at exactly the right time, to exactly the right place, even if that place is in the middle of nowhere, and the help is as obscure as a life-saving potion that only one person - also in a seemingly random location - knows how to make.

It is no wonder, the stories people are telling about her. The names they whisper.

More than one set of shoulders is tense around the fire, wondering what is going to happen in Val Royeaux once she steps out of the shadows and onto the world stage.

Cullen fights the urge to ask if Nua is really alright after her “encounter” with the dragons. He doesn’t suppose you can technically call it a fight. He just asks, “Do we know if she is going to make it in time?”

“She gave her assurance,” Cassandra replies, a wary shrug in her voice. “She would not speak of it, nor would she give any details. Not where she was going, not for how long, nothing. She spoke privately to Varric the night before she left, but he will not say anything other than ‘relax.’” She casts a look at him that makes it clear that she’d love nothing more than to mash him into paste.

“Hey, hey now, keep it in your pants, Seeker. Like I told you, I’m just following orders. ‘If they start to panic, tell them I’m ok and that I said to calm the fuck down.’ Her words.” More or less. But those could be Varric’s middle names. “Or would you prefer I ignore the instructions from the god-sent elf so you can feel better? And here I thought you wanted me _to_ follow the rules.”

A muscle at her jaw takes a leap, but she says, if tightly, “You are right.” She goes on before he can comment gleefully on that. “But if she is not there to represent herself, we could lose what little momentum we have begun to gain.”

“Most of which the Inquisition only gained in the first place because of her,” Varric points out.

“Do not tell me you claim no responsibility for charming the masses,” Cassandra says, droll.

“The Prophet has magic this world has never seen,” Solas says quietly. “She is wise beyond her years, and she seems determined to help. To aid us, to aid all of Thedas, though she certainly has no obligation to do so. With her foreknowledge, there can be no way she would fail to appreciate how important this meeting may be. And with her obvious sense of responsibility, if she has taken the risk of this side trip now of all times, I am inclined to believe it is of vital importance. If she is not there, there will likely be a reason for it. A very good reason, I assume. One that benefits our cause in the long run. I believe we should trust her.”

“I agree,” Leliana says. She looks Solas in the eye, and they share a brief moment of understanding. It seems something like faith, if different kinds.

“She will crack the world to be there, if she has to,” Cole murmurs. “We are her family, her people--” Solas perfectly hides a lance of pain, “--and she is the places in between. They open for her, they are so happy to be known again. Rusted hinges, dirty windows, dusty rooms, but she sees through, she knows. She wants to help,” he adds, and his voice is iron certainty. “She knows we need her, she knows how much. We will burn if she lets us fall, and she won’t. An egg in hands too strong to hold it.” He looks down at his own pale fingers, long and thin, perfect for picking a lock or finding the space between ribs.

The circle has gone utterly silent and distinctly uncomfortable.

“. . .Well, see,” Varric says, his voice pitched up in false brightness, “there you go. That’s basically a guarantee.”

“Maybe tell her not to hurry too much,” The Iron Bull says, shifting uncomfortably. “I like the world un-cracked.”

“She doesn’t hurt it,” Cole replies, bewildered.

“And I’d rather not burn,” Cullen adds darkly. Cassandra glances at him, a covered, knowing look in her eyes.

No one asks about the “family” part of what Cole said, but it is on every mind.

“We must have faith in her,” Leliana says. She sounds so certain, so sure. “Solas is right, she would not be doing this without a plan.” She has seemed perhaps impulsive at times, but he _is_ right. The Prophet would not risk something so important. “Until we hear otherwise, we should proceed as if she will be there. The only thing more disastrous than not having her in Val Royeaux would be having no one there at all.”

“. . .Now that that is settled, would you care to tell me why the chancellor found it necessary to travel all the way to Haven before the meet?” Cassandra asks, flatly unamused.

“You assume he deigned to tell any of us,” Leliana quips. “Presumably it was to hinder the plans we have certainly been making to sabotaging the meeting and sew chaos throughout all of Thedas.”

Cullen groans. “I’d almost forgotten about him. Was it really necessary to call me back to earth so soon?”

“We could get lucky,” Varric replies, leaning back to rest on his elbows. “Maybe this time she’ll keep the sword, and he’ll be the one on his knees in the mud.”

“What’s that, now?” Blackwall asks, brows up.

“We likely should not joke about it,” Cassandra grumbles.

“By all means, do,” Solas says, surprising everyone but Cole, who is currently trying to shoo a bug away from the fire.

 

* * * * *

 

I stop our Jumps a mile outside of Haven and enchant our feet to stay atop the deep snow. I’m not nervous, exactly, but there is something thrashing around in my gut like a great eel that feels a good deal like nervousness.

When sounds become sharp and clear, I make myself small again, returning to the form I woke to, and isn’t that some sickeningly perfect metaphor.

I’m ready for a good number of things regarding my return. Prepared. Braced. So when we break through the treeline and I stop dead, it’s really something.

There aren’t nearly as many bodies as I have been expecting. Based on the last estimates I had, the landscape should be overrun. It isn’t. The snow is trampled flat and dirtied in a tremendous swath around the face of the large town, and there are a few extra tents and milling, pointed-eared bodies and what looks to be a large dalish camp - or not large, I suppose, given what Elden told me - just outside the wall opposite the training grounds and makeshift barracks. Aside from those, there is no one.

Like a smell that hits just a moment after you inhale, I’ve barely taken this in when I feel something that rams into me like a force of celestial power, ripping me inside out. My chest folds and closes over it; I practically crumple in on myself to get away from it.

They aren’t. . .alive. None of them. They’re moving, they’re talking. I can smell their feelings. But they are all. . . they’re worse than dead. How are they standing, how are they not screaming and weeping on the ground? They’re stunted, disfigured, horrifically ill, so wrong that I want to cry out at the horror and cruelty of it.

And then cold understanding settles in my gut.

For the last week, I have been around no one. Except other elvhen.

I will never forget what I felt when I laid eyes on an elf for the first time. He was normal, healthy for this place. But what I saw was diminished and sickly, like a deformed creature clinging to life, unaware of the pain it was in. This now is so much more, and it is so much worse, and it’s not only the elves. It’s everyone. Humans. A lone dwarf.

 _It was like walking through a world of Tranquil._ A buzzing in my head accompanies the memory, but I still know it was Fen’harel who had said it, would say it, perhaps. But he had been underselling. I see weeds before me, mutated and broken and every compassionate instinct in me recoils and screams to end them, here and now, because it is the only kindness that can be provided.

The memory - the knowledge - of being one of them is frighteningly distant, but I cling to it as if it is an anchor in a storm and I will be ripped away by the gale if I let go.

I step back into the trees and can’t make myself even conceive of approaching for a long, long time.

What the fuck am I supposed to do now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is the omniscient POV confusing? I can't tell if it's confusing.
> 
> I'm rewriting the series. Chapter four will be done soon. It's not a REWRITE rewrite, like I'm not changing plot stuff, I just understand characters *glowers pointedly at Solas* and where I'm going with this a lot better now, so it's to add some subtlety and improve continuity. I'm making Nua pretty different in the beginning. Because reasons. I'd like to think I've improved a little as a writer since I started this too, but. . . I'm not really sure how you'd even gauge that.
> 
> I've added an [Ask/Prompt box](https://ahab2631.tumblr.com/ask) to my Tumblr. And I even actually log in sometimes now.
> 
> But I have a rule. If you use it, you're forbidden from apologizing for using it or asking for stuff. Because that's what it's for, and you do you.
> 
> Glad to be back and "see" your lovely faces again, popes.


	24. --PART II--

**-  -  -  -  -**

**A Million Voices**

**-  -  -  -  -**

 

 

I make myself look like a soldier so I don’t have to deal with anyone on the way in.

It doesn’t work.

“You’re telling me that every traveler who wants to enter Haven has to know a password?” I demand.

“You’re not a traveller,” the guard replies. He and his partner look haggard and long past the point of patience. “You’re a soldier.”

“Are you--!” I bite out. With a little growl, I yank the fingers of my right glove, pull it off, and hold the palm out to them, facing the sky, keeping it low and close to myself. I will a little magic into it, just enough to get it to show green.

“Pretend I’m a traveler,” I suggest in an entirely, not at all pissed-off manner as I slip my hand back into the leather.

They stammer. They exchange a look as if each hopes the other will know what’s going on.

“I. . . wait here,” says the soldier who seems to be the spokesman for the duo. He quickly slips inside the gates, leaving his partner awkwardly not making eye contact.

“Travelers can’t come inside right away either,” the guard explains sheepishly.

I grunt. “I take it the glowing green hand isn’t enough proof for your friend?”

The guard nearly laughs. Nervously. “He isn’t my friend. And if you are who you say you are, then you should know we’re only following orders. Your Worship.”

Right. I warned them about elves. I have to give him a begrudging nod for that. After a moment.

There has been a quiet argument behind and to the side of me that comes to a head with the raised words, “I know what I saw!” Angry footsteps are headed in my direction.

I am intimately familiar with the low voice. I have heard it speak hatred and vengeance, and I have heard from it love and desire. I lived with it for parts of a decade.

Presently, it is livid, and accompanied by the tang of pure magic charging the air.

I snap myself up, going alert, and turn to see him just in time to really appreciate the _fury_ on his face before he growls, _“You.”_

“Damnit, Fenris,” a woman’s voice, just as familiar, says from behind him. She is jogging forward as she calls, “Uh, you may want to--”

In the same moment as he rams into me, hands going to the fabric just below my throat and hoisting me to the balls of my feet, I hold a hand out to Beast, low by my thigh, telling him to hang back. He snarls. It’s not a noise I’ve heard from him before.

Fenris’s snow-white hair has grown out and is pulled back out of his face, secured behind his head. His vivid, pale green eyes are murderous, and his skin is glowing with a flare of blue lines that cast light on his angular face like a candle. It hurts less to look at him than it does the others, but only a little.

His face has matured and filled out, older than I remember, and he has three small circles of lyrium in a triangle on his brow. He looks incredible with his hair out of his face. Livid, but incredible. He darts a look to Beast, probably too angry to care what he’s looking at so long as it’s not charging him, and barks, _“Explain yourself!”_

The guard’s sword has come out of its sheath audibly and he’s shouting orders at Fenris. Which is attracting the attention of everyone nearby. I give him the same stilling motion I gave Beast. I have to snap my fingers to get him to look at my hand. My eyes aren’t leaving the elf in front of me.

“Fenris,” Hawke whisper-snaps. Cake gives a sort of rumble from her side, half growl, half whine, as if he is uncertain what to do, or exasperated with the elf. Beast is staying back, but he’s tensed and showing all his teeth, a near-constant growl rumbling in his chest. His tail is swishing angrily from side to side.

Cake’s ear twitches and his head cocks when he looks at the horse. He scents the air, but doesn’t react otherwise.

It doesn’t take but an instant for the curiosity of the onlookers to turn to urgency, and more soldiers are running in our direction. I lift a hand again, a little farther from my side. _Wait,_ it says. _Hold back._

 _“Answer me, witch!”_ Fenris yells. “Why have you forced us here?”

There is a beat. A pause. For an instant, all sound is sucked away. Then I hear the crash of the ocean.

Fenris isn't Dalish.

“Feris, she _doesn’t speak Common,”_ Hawk says in her accented, warm alto. “Andraste’s tits, couldn’t we have taken this somewhere more private? And less surrounded by a military organization?”

He only gives me a shake, eyes narrowing, and bears his teeth in something like a snarl. His canines are more pointed than a human’s.

I have gone ashen.

“If she doesn’t speak Common,” he replies, “then why does she look like she just saw a ghost?”

“Maybe because you’re an _angry glowing elf_ yelling in her face? They probably don’t have those where she comes from!”

“I--” I croak. I take a moment to clear my throat. “Can you. . . can you repeat that? _What_ did I do?”

Hawke blinks at me. “Well. That’s what I get for listening to rumors.”

“You know exactly what you did,” Fenris spits. “Hounding us, plaguing us until we come here to what? Be your slaves? Your personal army? You have no right!”

The soldier next to me is antsy, shifting his weight from foot to foot, and others are reaching us, weapons drawn. So are some of the Dalish from the camp now at my back. All of them carry staffs, and some have knives or bows. A few carry rocks. All smell hostile and protective.

As I give another surreptitious settling motion, this time with both hands, Hawke steps forward and puts a hand on Fenris’ arm. “Fenris,” she says gently, kindly. “Look at her. She didn’t know. She had no idea.” She looks up at me. “Right?”

The second guard hesitates, then takes off at a run through the town’s gates.

It’s too long before I can answer. “I met a dalish a few weeks ago. She told me there was a dream, one dream. I assumed it was only one, and the way she talked about it. . . I thought it was only the Dalish. That was bad enough.”

“No, that isn’t it, is it?” Fenris says as if I haven’t spoken. “Perhaps you lure us here because you seek to tempt the Maker like the Magisters of old. What better place from which to do so than wearing the mask of his own Prophet?” he spits. Bodies tense all around us. “No fool would believe you are not behind this.”

“Good thing you’re not stupid then,” I say evenly, with the hard sort of gaze that banks tempers. “I’ve sworn publicly on more than one occasion my desire to castrate whoever is behind this, and that was when I thought it was just one, and a small percentage of the elves in the world. I’m not much of a supporter of forced anything, Fenris.”

This seems to make him _more_ angry.

“Put her down,” Hawke urges. “Look at her. She looks half ill. No offense,” she says to me.

“She has no idea what unwell feels like,” Fenris says, his voice lowering to menacing quiet. “Allow me to remedy that.” He pulls his right arm back and it flares to new life, hand and forearm going translucent and crystalline-blue.

The soldiers have time to do no more than tense, and Hawke to widen her eyes in alarm before it snaps forward toward my chest.

It meets the palm of my hand with force that sends an electric tingle up my arm. The slap when it hits is like the cracking of stone or a distant rumble of thunder. His eyes go round as saucers and his fury vanishes as he looks between my face and his glowing hand. Confusion, bewilderment, disbelief, and very briefly something like fear flit over his features before new anger sweeps in to take their place.

“Unhand me!” He yanks his arm back, but he might as well be trying to get it out of a custom-fitted, welded steel cage.

Any humor or patience is gone now when I look at him. “I got ancient magic branded into my hand against my will and was spit out of the sky into an alien world not a month ago, _Leto.”_ He pales, then reddens. “All told, I think I’m handling it fairly well, but this, what you just told me, is just about pushing me to my limit.”

He is using his free hand to try to pry my fingers away as he leans back and digs his feet tractionlessly into the earth, trying to pull or twist himself free. He is nearly as close to frantic as I have ever seen him.

He exerts as much force as a gentle afternoon breeze.

I pull him forward by his fist and lean in to put my face inches from his. My voice is low and deadly quiet, “Now if you will kindly calm the actual fuck down, maybe we can try to sort out what’s going on here so you and yours can get back to your lives, and I can go back to trying to save this idiot world from the hubris and glaring stupidity of its own inhabitants.” I am fair hissing by the end, my eyes narrowed to slits.

I promptly release his hand and straighten. He plummets to his ass on the ice-hard trampled earth and the glow of his marks promptly subside.

Hawke leaves him be, looking at me as if she’s trying to piece something together. “You really didn’t know, did you?”

I arch a brow at her. “Do you lie to your boyfriend often?”

“Only when he’s being suicidally stupid.”

“So, often. To answer your question, no, I didn’t know,” I reply bluntly. “Not more than what I said I did.” I cross my arms, watching Fenris as he scrabbles to his feet. Hawke covers his hand with hers before he can make the mistake of reaching for a weapon. “I don’t like lying,” I add, glaring pointedly at him.

I am buzzing at the edges, vibrating so hard I think I might come apart. Beast edges closer, standing at my back and arcing his tail to clear a space around me. He touches his velvet nose to my neck with a warm puff of air and leans hard into me. It isn’t as bad as when I met Mihiris, but it’s bad enough that I have to shut everyone else out and turn my face into him. He snarls sharply at the first person who tries to speak.

When I piece myself back together, I murmur quiet words to him in English before opening my eyes and looking at Hawke. I keep an arm wrapped under Beast’s neck in a sort of half-hug, my fingers massaging the other side.

Hawke doesn’t look aged. She hasn’t even changed her hair, but there is a tightness and a warmth to her that wasn’t there when she was in Kirkwall. I suppose I know what and who, respectively, is responsible.

“. . .I thought you’d be shorter,” I remark flatly.

I did not, in fact, think she would be shorter.

Despite the situation, she lets out a small laugh. Sort of like “Wait, I recognize this kind of crazy.”

“I have to admit, I’ve never gotten that one before. Usually it’s taller. And shooting lightning from my eyes.” Her voice is as lilting and nearly-sarcastic as always, but it sounds uneasy, too.

“And a man,” I contribute. “A man so virile he can impregnate women with nothing more than a glance. I’ll be honest, the moment I saw you, I wished I was on contraceptives.”

Tension over with, Cake is trying to get Beast to play. He’s bounding around the massive horse, butt wiggling in the air and front paws splayed, yipping and whining deep in his chest. Beast is sneering and showing teeth and lifting any foot Cake nears as if he’s some filthy urchin who’s going to dirty his good clothes if he gets too near.

“Should I. . . ?” Hawke asks, pointing at them.

I wave a hand. “It’s good for him.”

Beast turns to snap at my hand, but it’s gone before his teeth close. There is a flurry of quiet remarks from the people who saw how fast it moved.

 _“See now you don’t get pet anymore,”_ I say. _”That’s what happens when you’re crabby.”_

I don’t actually hate it, which I think he knows. I get the sense that because I’m as fast and durable as I am, I’m the only biped he’s ever been able to be himself around. To not hold back around.

I can understand what a relief it must be.

He huffs, tousling the ends of my butchered hair.

Hawke sobers watching all of this. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance we might take this somewhere more private? You know, since we’ve been such polite guests so far--” Fenris glares murder at her, which she ignores entirely, “and I’m sure you feel completely inspired to see to our comfort.”

Before the last words are out of her mouth, the gate to Haven is opening and Josephine is emerging, panting, the errant guards behind her.

“Your Worship,” she greets. Her tone is a mix of things, and so is her scent. Relief, surprise, disappointment, worry. “Is everything alright?” She asks in an “It had damn well better be” voice, directed mostly at the guards.

“I had an uneventful reunio-- _meeting_ with some old friends of Varric’s. One of them didn’t seem to be familiar with personal boundaries. Is there a room where the four of us can talk?”

Concern, now. “Of course. If you will follow me to the Chantry.”

“A moment,” I say. I turn to the dalish and do my best to smile with some sincerity. “I need to see to some things, but I’ll be out to speak with you properly as soon as I can.” It is a force of will not to apologize. I think that’s something I’m not supposed to do when laying the ground with an entire civilization that I’m apparently supposed to be a god to. Not when they could burn the Inquisition to the ground if I say the wrong thing. “Are we helping you as much as we’re able?”

A man so old his face is lined and creased over every inch steps forward, leaning heavily on a staff. His eyebrows are massive, massive even by human standards, and his eyes are a honeyed purple, faded like sepia. He bows, long and deep, and I’m nearly cringing at how painful it looks. He straightens slowly and greets me in Elvhen, his voice rich and deep and smoothed like soft leather, then goes on to say something about a badger and tree pickles. My name is in there somewhere.

“Er, Common, if you would,” I manage.

He nods respectfully. “The Inquisition has been a gracious host. I am,” he casts a wary eye to the humans around me, “Amelan’u’vunen Ghimyean Ghilan.” My brows shoot up. Ghilan is the name of his clan, the clan descended from the first Inquisitor. Ameridan. I understand his wary glance now, too. Dalish consider their names sacred things. They don’t hand the full versions out in front of “quicklings.” I don’t even think most people know they have more than one or two.

“If it pleases you, Holy One,” he goes on, nodding behind himself to the other dalish gathered and the camp beyond, not all of who, I notice now, are dalish, “we are the representatives for all elves who have heeded your call.” Fenris snorts and gets several glares, some of them openly hostile, from some of them. “We have waited many hundreds of years for you, and we have come to do as you bid. We will wait with patience, however long is required,” he says with a bow of his head.

I caught whiffs in the Hinterlands sometimes of what is coming off of these people like a cloud. Adoration. Worship. Hope so strong it borders on heartbreak.

“We are your servants,” he adds. Given what I know that they don’t, it makes my nausea double over on itself.

“It may not be until tomorrow or the day after.” There’s a lot to go over, and frankly, I don’t want to have this conversation when I haven’t slept in two weeks. The “day after” is only so I’m not a liar if some emergency comes up and I can’t make it.

He bows again and I can’t help it, I hold a hand out and hurry to say “Don’t-- Don’t do that, please. Just. . .” I glance from him to the ground and back. “Uh, I’m good without bows.” I smile and nod to punctuate my point.

He manages a passable “My thanks” in Elvhen, and with another nod to him and a glance around to the others, I follow Josephine into Haven, Beast, Hawke, Fenris, and Cake with us. When I hear a yelp, I half turn around, but I already know what happened.

_“Oh my god, stop. He just likes you.”_

Beast makes a quiet sound I’ve never heard before, almost like a clicking hiss.

_“Has anyone told you you have a horrible attitude?”_

He speeds up his gait to pass me, and I get an “accidental” tail to the face as he does. The tuft hair at the end is very, very coarse.

“I’ll cut it off,” I warn quietly.

He lifts it and defecates on the road.

“Dick,” I mutter.

 

* * * * *

 

The stable hand - a woman who, from the way her pupils shrivel up when she sees Beast, I’m guessing Dennet brought with him - damn near shits herself when she sees the horse calmly walking at my side as I scratch his massive flank.

When he follows my verbal request to get into a stall and hang out there (he gives an annoyed huff, then nuzzles at my neck with more force than strictly necessary. Then ends it by nipping me.) and I harp at him to be nice, I legitimately think for a moment that she is going to faint.

 

* * * * *

 

Josephine takes us to the main library, which is back in the private halls of the Chantry and offers good lighting and plenty of comfortable seating. I ward it for sound the moment we enter and turn immediately to Fenris.

“How did they force you here?”

He only glowers at me, and somewhere behind the wall I have erected to keep from being sick on literally everyone I see, I understand well how he got his nickname from Varric.

“They were just dreams at first,” Hawke says. The mirth has left her voice. She sounds utterly exhausted, and not just physically.

“Hawke,” Fenris snaps, but she ignores him with a weary sigh.

“They got aggressive. ‘Find the Prophet,’ ‘Seek out Haven.’ The way he told it--”

_“Hawke.”_

“--it was like going from speaking to shouting, louder and louder until he couldn’t get any sleep. It became like a sort of mania during the day. They stopped as soon as we decided to come here, but if we changed our minds, they started up again.”

My lips are a thin line. The kind of magic needed to pull something like this off. . . . I’m almost positive that not even Fen’Harel could pull something like this off right now.

I _will_ castrate whoever is behind this. And I will enjoy it. Then I will slowly and painfully regrow their junk, then castrate them a second time. Then make them watch while an animal eats it.

I consider a moment. “Has anyone tried leaving?”

Everyone just stares. Then Josephine offers, “We have not had reports of trouble from the relocated elves.”

“Right. That’s what I assumed, and good. But I mean _leaving_ leaving. Like maybe they were only set up to get people here, not _keep_ people here. Understand?”

Hawke blinks at me. “We never considered it.” She looks at Fenris. He glowers at me for another moment, then strides past, grips Hawke’s arm, and heads for the door.

Hawke objects and pulls her arm back. “There’s more going on here than just dreams,” she argues. “And if what we’ve heard is true--”

“He is _dead,_ Hawke. We killed him, at great cost. We stood over his body.”

“No,” I say flatly, “‘he’ isn’t. Assuming you’re talking about Corypheus. He _was_ dead, you did kill him.” I pause. “Then he got better.”

Hawke looks a little green, but her lips turn down and she gives Fenris a very easy ‘See? I told you so’ look.

He scoffs. “If you think we are going to believe a word out of your mouth, witch--”

“Come up with more creative insults,” I snap. “I like you, Fenris, I do. I always did, even when you were a massive asshole.” He opens his mouth, angry, but my ara’lin pushes itself out of its own accord to wash over him, and his pupils shrink to pinholes. “ I get that I’m everything you hate in the world, but I didn’t ask for any of this bullshit. You’re pissed off. I _fucking get it,”_ I enunciate. “But unless you think Hawke _and_ Varric are hopeless morons, _stop taking it out on me_ so we can figure it out and you can leave. Which frankly, I’d prefer at this point because Jesus Christ.”

His face goes slack, and then shock lights in his eyes. He looks at me like he hasn’t seen me until right this moment, like I am nothing at all that he could have expected. Suspicion washes back in, but it is a pale, silent thing, a faint undercurrent.

I look at Josephine. I think she’s lost weight.

“Where are we?” I ask. It’s more snappish than I intend.

She glances at Hawke and Fenris.

I move my eyes in their direction, but stop then right around one of the bookcases on the far wall. “Feel free to stay if you don’t mind carrying around more secrets, because nothing we say leaves this room. If you do, my overrun town is your overrun town. I don’t know when Varric will be back, but he’d love to see you. Obviously.”

I turn back at Josephine expectantly. Behind me, Hawke and Fenris exchange a look. In the language of intimacy cultivated over years, they have a conversation without words - an argument - and in the end, stay where they are.

“The most pressing issue first, then,” Josephine begins.

“The city elves? Yeah, I figured it out.” I tip my head toward Fenris. “How are we not drowning?”

She blinks at me, then glances at Fenris. “What else do you know, first?” she asks, her voice uneasy.

“I feel like shit and am doing horrible job of hiding it, for which I’ll probably feel like an asshole later, it probably looks like a deranged pelican cut my hair, I could eat my own weight if I thought I could eat, we have celebrities in our company now, our soldiers are haggard, there’s an entire population waiting for me to shatter the hopes and beliefs they have fought to keep for generations, and if there is a God, he or she or it doesn’t actually hate us, because we haven’t literally been trampled under the weight of millions of fugitive and or refugee elves,” I ramble off.

Josephine gives a little sideways bob of her head. “That does sum up most of it rather well,” she says, walking toward the door.

“Most. Lovely.”

She opens the door and pops her head out. “Some food for the Prophet. A very generous portion.”

I purse my lips, but don’t stop her. My stomach is roiling and I am tight with the effort of holding back the physical signs of disgust, but I should at least try to eat something.

“What is this about shattering hopes and beliefs?” Fenris asks. His tone is surprisingly, wondrously civil - there is only a whisper of what Varric would refer to as “broodiness” in it.

I sigh, a tight sound that hugs the back of my throat. “The generally accepted history of the elves, their history, isn’t exactly what they think it is.”

“And how would you know?”

I look him in the eye. “I was there.”

He scoffs, and I close my eyes against the urge to hit him.

“Hawke,” I manage. “My favorite, most wonderful person in all the world, would you please shut him the hell up for a minute? I haven’t slept or eaten in about two weeks, I just got about five metric tons of new bullshit dropped on my shoulders, and that was _before_ I found all this out, and the worst parts are all still coming. I’m kinda cranky.”

“. . .How are you alive?” She asks.

“Different physiology. I think I’m pushing it, though. Things are starting to get fuzzy around the edges. And I’m usually much more. . . patient.”

Josephine’s face pulls in with worry at the same time Fenris opens his mouth, and Hawke clamps a hand over it before he can say a word. “Let’s be nice to the insanely powerful being for now, shall we?” She leans in and says to him in an undertone.

“Should you not rest first, your holiness?” Josie asks me.

I shake my head dismissively. “Not until late morning tomorrow. I need to be alone while I sleep. In the Fade, I mean. Until then, what do I need to know?”

“Very well. Do you know of a woman named Briala? An elf, formerly Empress Celene’s--”

“Girlfriend, yeah. What abou--” My mind stalls as the information slips into place. “Her eluvian network,” I breathe. My eyes go wide. _That’s_ why we haven’t been trampled by elves. Oh, I am going to kiss her full on the mouth.

“Her _what?”_ Fenris demands sharply.

“Not like Merrill's,” I assure him with a dismissive wave in his direction. “I don’t know what that was, but it wasn’t an eluvian.”

“I do not know what that is,” Josephine goes on, “and Briala has been reluctant to say the least to tell us _how_ she is doing it, but she is relocating elves as fast as they come in. To say the feat is impressive would be underselling it by a considerable margin. She will not tell us where they are going, either, but we were hardly in a position to decline her offer. With your order that elves be so carefully vetted--”

“I created an impossible situation,” I conclude. “I figured that was part of why the guards looked so haggard. Is it getting better for them? Sorry I keep interrupting you,” I add.

She gives a polite, but genuine, smile. “That is quite alright. The situation is improving, yes. It is more challenging without the Commander here, but we will manage until his return. What of you? It sounds as if your journey was. . . difficult. Did you find what you needed, at least?”

I nod. “I can answer any question now, I think, and tell you everything I know. Which is part of what we need to talk about tonight. You’re going to need to put in some big orders for supplies. Material and. . . what’s the word for everyone? Just people, I guess. I’m only used to ‘human.’” Fenris and Hawke exchange another look. “Until then, what else?”

“The man you requested from Antiva when you first arrived. He is here.”

Of course, I realize. It’s _all_ elves. Which means we likely have many of the mages now, and. . . I look at Hawke and Fenris. “Merrill?” I ask.

Hawke’s brows go up, “I’ll be damned - and have been, on several occasions, as well as cursed, hexed, and generally disparaged - but that _is_ rather impressive.” Fenris’s jaw twitches, but it’s a sullen thing, rather than outright hostile. “We haven’t seen her. We asked around a bit, but the dalish would only talk to Fenris and he’s. . . well. What else do you know?”

“In general, you mean?” She nods. “Too much to get into right now. It’s Zevran, by the way. That’s Antivan Josie so tactfully didn’t mention was an Assassin. Which is not why I’m hiring him by the way.” I look at Josephine. “What’s the update on the House of Repose?”

“I have found the surviving heir you mentioned, and we wait only for the influence needed to have her House restored.”

“We’ll have help there after the meet. I know this is an impossible question, but do you know if an elf named Sera is here from Val Royeaux? You can’t miss her. Curvy and tall, loud, haircut about as good as mine, dresses like a bomb went off in her closet. Causes a fair amount of trouble, mischief, and general upset of the status quo wherever she goes? I’m also told she can eat an obscene amount of food in one sitting. Er. . . was told.” I scrunch up my face. “Will be told?”

“Nnno, your Holiness,” Josie replies. “But if you wish, I can have our supply chains notified, such as they are. Briala has taken care of much of that, as well, (Full. On. The mouth.) and what little we manage is not yet as organized as it should be.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “She’ll find us if she wants to.”

It hits me then, like a sack of bricks to the chest. Sera my _not_ want to find us. I have become everything she hates most in the world. Well, except a rich asshole.

. . .But like Fenris, she probably assumes I’m an asshole, too, because of the dreams.

So just not rich, then.

 

* * * * *

 

Food is brought and Elden is sent for - she has become the tacit ambassador for the dalish, about which she seems acutely uncomfortable. Eventually Hawke and Fenris excuse themselves to get much-needed rest, and the three of us talk long into the night. My meal looks about as appealing as ash, but once I force a piece of dried fruit into myself, my appetite takes over and I put away an obscene amount.

The Inquisition is not in good shape. Our resources are at crisis level trying to ensure all the elves coming have just the basic necessities for travel to wherever Briala is taking them, never mind once they get there. Many of the pockets they have settled into are doing what they can to become self-reliant - some are even slipping back into familiar roles in nearby cities and towns - but that takes time and coin and more supplies. And what are they to do when no one has any idea how long they’re going to be in a given place?

Basically, all of California and Texas either have or are currently migrating to a village of roughly three hundred. Since the Inquisition moved in, it has been pushed - really pushed - to over a thousand, and that’s with most of the soldiers camped in tents in the snow. The soldiers who are supposed to be in a condition to fight at a moment’s notice. I wonder how they expect to do anything this way, until I realize that conditions are probably much the same for every army across Thedas.

As a result of the dreams - the travel and the attempts to create stable colonies - no fewer than two hundred elves have died. I am flabbergasted and suspicious, if I’m being honest, that the number isn’t much higher. The estimate doesn’t take into account Tevinter, however. Josephine estimates the death toll will be considerably higher there.

Word has of course begun to spread about where everyone’s servants, workers, and slaves are disappearing to, and Josephine is being put under an incredible amount of political pressure. The lack of physical evidence that the elves are coming to us - millions of pointy-eared men, women, and children to be exact - helps, but not nearly enough. Spies report back to masters, and enough of the elves talked about the dreams before they were literally forced to abandon homes and lives. Ambassadors from as far as Tevinter are putting the screws to Josephine, so to speak. It is not endearing us to any of the nobles whose support we desperately need.

Unless I wish to be ambushed - again - I’m told I should keep my head down and my hand covered while I’m here.

“You should be safe for the time being so long as you do not attract undue attention,” she says. So. . . don’t piss off any more glowing elves whose faces are world-famous. “No one expected your return for quite some time, but word will travel quickly.”

“Would it help if I talked to them?” I ask uncertainly. “The representatives, I mean. Will it get them off your back, at least?”

She thinks for a moment. “Truthfully, it is difficult to say. It would likely help with the elves, but in either case, without knowing when you will be departing next, it may cause more harm than good. We debated whether it was wise to not leave more of your counsel behind given the circumstances, but with what you know. . . .”

With what I know, they didn’t want to risk going against my instructions that Leliana and Cullen needed to be in Val Royeaux. This is why I don’t like being in charge. Second in command? Sure. First? No thank you. “But I didn’t know about this, Josie.” Her brows go up, and I don’t realize until it’s too late to apologize that it’s probably for the familiar use of her name.

I take a page from Cullen’s book and massage the back of my neck. “We knew my being here would change things. But this. . . . There was no version of the world where anything like this happened. It’s completely out of left field.”

I feel like I should feel that this is my fault. That I should feel guilt. Like a voice is telling me that a normal person would feel that way, so the fact that I don’t is wrong. No, not wrong. Incorrect. But I didn’t do this (that I know of). I didn’t throw the rock into the lake whose ripples are resulting in this.

Thinks the woman with gaping holes in her memory.

“Left field?” Josephine asks.

I wave a hand. “It’s an idiom where I come from. Sorry, it’s easy to forget to watch that. And Solas, I take it he’s with the others?”

She nods. “We were uncertain where to place him given your caution, and decided it would be best to have more eyes on him.”

I nod back. “That’s a good call. It was just until my trip was over, though, the worry. He’ll rally behind the cause as stalwartly as anyone else.” But I’m still going to tell Leliana to watch him.

“I am relieved to hear that. He has proven surprisingly helpful, as you suggested he would.” She chuckles a little, like she’s laughing at herself for pointing out that the “Seer’s” advice was good. “The others remained as long as they could, but in the end, the only thing worse than not having you in Val Royeaux to represent yourself was having no one there at all. I received word today that they met with your party from the Hinterlands on the road last night. The Warden Blackwall is with them.”

My brows go up in surprise, just a little. It’s muted, everything about my outside is muted.

“Another unforseen,” she says. “Your instructions were followed,” she assures me, “but there was a. . . confrontation. It made a conversation impossible to avoid, and when he found out the agent was with the Inquisition, he indicated he wished to join our cause. He was asked to wait, but apparently was not interested in ‘sitting about while there is work to be done.’ Since you said obtaining his company was the ultimate goal, we thought it best not to turn him away.”

I huff a laugh, flimsy like a dry leaf. “Yeah, that sounds like him. And it was a good call they made. But have someone in the area keep an eye out around where he was. There are some young men whose farms are going to be attacked, and he would have taught them to stand up for what’s theirs. Bandits, I think. I don’t remember right now.”

The pause is just a little too long.

“Why the caution?” Elden asks abruptly. She and I are leaning against the arms of soft, overstuffed chairs. Her arms are crossed. “About Solas.”

“What? Oh, it just had to do with privacy. That’s why I gave my message to Varric before I left, because dwarves don’t dream. There’s more to it, but I don’t want to get into it until Val Royeaux.”

Josephine looks confused. Elden asks, “When?”

“The meet. I’ll be there. I planned my timing carefully; I should be at least day early, if I can leave three days from now.”

To varying degrees, both women are gaping at me.

I wiggle my fingers. “Fancy magic, remember? I can get there within hours if I’m traveling alone. I went a lot slower on my trip because I didn’t know how Beast would take that kind of magic.” I look at Elden. “You’re coming? We’ll need to leave earlier.”

“Uh. . . no. No I need to stay here right now, unless you want me there.”

I give a little shake of my head. “It should be fine without you. I’ll see what I can do about. . . I don’t know, recording the talk? Something. You two may have to subsist on secondhand information.”

“I. . . am certain we will manage.” Josie says. Elden just shakes her head to herself. “Is this perhaps a spell you could teach to others? It would completely change commerce.”

I shake my head.

The rest of the night is spent on logistics - pulling our people out of the Fallow Mire after telling the Avaar I'll meet them, having our people on the Storm Coast watch for an amulet I'll need, things like that - trying to convey what we need in order to get Skyhold up and running without actually talking about Skyhold. In the end we decide not to have Josephine put in the actual orders - no decision will be reached about our journey there until I speak with everyone - but she can still get a head start sourcing materials and tradesman. If we do end up going, at least we’ll be able to send teams ahead of us to get the basics up and running. And we should have most of the people we need already - skilled laborers and tradesman, and apparently it isn’t an uncommon practice for a “master” to take credit for his more skilled elven “apprentice’s” work.

By the time we’re done, Josephine’s parchment is so long its end is literally a wave on the floor. I don’t know what her secret is, but if not for my senses, I wouldn’t be able to tell that she’s bone tired.

When there is no more urgent news, when there are no more questions, I stand from the arm of a soft chair and tell them both to get some sleep. I don’t add “It’s an order.” I don’t have to, because my tone does it for me.

I tell Josephine I have no idea how long I’ll sleep, so if I’m not out of my room on my own by tomorrow afternoon - we are many hours into what was tomorrow when I arrived - someone should wake me. I have to talk to the dalish before I go.

I have to figure out what to _say_ to the dalish before I go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3/5/18: Small logistic(al?) details added


	25. QA

Her lips curl up at the corners when she’s relaxed. It’s a quirk, slight and almost, _almost_ small enough to miss, but it makes her look as if she’s smiling at some private joke. As if she knows something clever and is waiting to see if you’ll catch it, too. He sees it sometimes when he sleeps, that smile. Its been in his nightmares since she left. It’s oddly easier to endure them now, when they do come. He trusts they won't last.

He tries not to be too eager for news, but he fails. She is the Prophet, so it is his business to know. But he finds himself more and more concerned with _how_ she’s doing just as much as he is _what_ she’s doing.

She is so… there’s something about her, and he loathes to lean toward the word “beautiful,” because it isn’t about how she looks, but he hesitates more to use the word “holy,” though he isn’t sure why. But no. It isn’t how she looks - though that is an entire world unto itself - it’s her spirit. Her soul, he thinks. An unmistakable brightness shines from her, like an earthbound sun, but more. No one truly wonders over the stories that circulate about her. But he does worry which of them is going to be the last straw for the Chantry. He still manages to wish they would see sense, though he also fears there will be no resolution to the larger, if less urgent problem facing Thedas unless it sees a reformation.

Most days, his faith in the Maker is all he has, but the Chantry…. It has lost its way. There was hope, before the Conclave. Before Divine Justinia was taken. But now, it is the corpse of a dying creature, and vultures like Roderick bicker over who may have the last scrap. He doesn’t know that there’s enough left of it to fix the world it broke. No. To fix the world that men like him broke. But he had help, and if all of them couldn’t claim responsibility - if _enough_ of them couldn’t claim responsibility - then the Inquisition may as well stop its work here and now.

Fortunately, he wasn’t willing to see that happen. And he was hardly the most stubborn or frightening person at its head, and thank the Maker for that. The world has suffered enough for his folly. He will always wonder if he could have stopped what happened at Kirkwall. But he knows he couldn’t. Had he not been so bigoted and pig-headed, he would never have received rank enough to even try.

Cullen sighs to himself.

But she, Nuaelan, she is hope. She is the hope they need, and impossibly, she may also be the means. Whether she herself is divine or not isn’t something he cares to try to form much of an opinion on, but it is hard to deny that the Maker _must_ have had His hand in this.

Sometimes he wonders about where she came from. He wants to believe it must be a paradise, but he fears he knows better, and it sets in his throat like a stone. People like her are not born from kind places. You cannot understand the human heart the way she does, or have the sheer mettle she does, unless you have lived the ugliest of it. It isn’t a stone in his chest, but a vice, when he thinks about that.

But she is here. Whatever shaped her, she is still that sun. That hope. None of this mess, this horror, is hers, but she is claiming it as if it were, for no other reason than that they need help. If that isn’t a divine action, he can’t think what would be. She is the door through which they can all choose to walk into a better world, if they’re willing to try. That, of course, is the hard bit.

Sometimes she makes him believe there might be a place for someone like him there. That there might be hope for redemption, even after all he has done and allowed. After the ugliness he has been. He doesn’t deserve it, he knows, but if he can do a little good with whatever time is left to him… well, at least something good may come from his time in the world. She is his best hope for that, and he will not fail her, or what the Inquisition might become.

It’s outrageous to think how quickly it is all beginning to move. The meet in Val Royeaux will tell them what they need to know about how to proceed. He prays every day that they will see her for what she is, and not for what they fear.

He prays for the journey to pass quickly, too, because every hour listening to Roderick disparage her brings his carefully banked temper that much closer to the surface. Cassandra has noticed. She put them on opposite ends of the column. It was wise.

And then there’s the boy, Cole. The sickly looking one in the big hat. He mutters to himself, and sometimes Cullen would swear he’s speaking about him.

 

* * * * *

 

I go out behind the Chantry and I hurl. But the air is cool, and I can rinse my mouth out with snow, so that’s nice.

Hand to my stomach, feeling like it’s trying to climb its way up my esophagus to join its contents, I listen carefully for anyone nearby. I’m alone, so I gingerly scale the side of the building, jumping from the ground up onto the natural rock wall that faces it, and from there high up onto the building where smooth wall stops and decorative framing begins.

I feel better at the top, standing on the single large beam that runs the length of its highest point. I can see forever in the sky, and I wonder if anyone would be able to sleep if they could see as much light as I can, or if it would be just another thing people adapt to. Probably the latter. Nature always finds a way.

Everyone but the guards are sleeping in the town below. Some hearts are speeding up, breaths beginning to deepen as people who are used to rising early start to be pulled out of the depths of sleep by force of habit. Bread-makers, cooks, and servants, probably more soldiers. The "lowest" always working the hardest. They probably stay up later than anyone, too. Well, anyone except Cullen. In any event, it should be a while before any of them start to really wake up. I have time. Time to feel like I can hear the ground and the buildings and the streets, the echoes of generations of absent footfalls, the witnesses of cares and worries both asinine and noble. Mostly asinine. From some viewpoints. I don’t fault people for being who they are, and there’s no point in even considering derision for it. You might as well yell at the wind.

The earth is singing. So is the sky, and the quiet. The softness that only lives at this time of the day, when people aren’t really people yet, not unless they haven’t gone to sleep at all. It’s better at times like this.

A knife twists in me, images of people in my mind replaced by deformed and disfigured things. I squeeze my eyes shut until I’m back in the core of the space around me. Back in a place where I don’t have to matter. Where whether the world ends or goes on, or whether either of those happen literally or figuratively, is a non-issue. Where it matters only as much as whether one of a million falling tree needles might land on old generations, or be the one that diverts a drop of water that ends up leading to the creation of a stream. Or whether that stream dries with the passing of a season or eventually turns into a river and carves out the earth.

I wish life was always this simple. But it can’ be. Because it’s full of people, and people complicate everything.

With a sigh like cracking the window of a smoke-filled room, my head falls back and I open myself. A song begins to play, something weaving through the fibers of me and coming from them at the same time, and it swells into the air until I can hear it, so rich in my mind that it’s a physical thing. It is sorrow and hope, it is potential and possibility and comfort and it is a question with no words and no answer. When it's done, I feel liquid and loose. Finally.

The moment my mind returns to me, I know something is wrong. I step forward on the beam, certain as an acrobat, and look down.

Most, if not all of Haven is looking back up at me. They are crowded into streets and leaning out from doorways. Children hold the hands of their caregivers, husbands hold wives. Soldier’s visors are tipped back, or the helmets removed completely, and sorrow, a scent perfectly moulded to the hollows created by the smell of their tears, rises up to me. So do other things, so many others.

I cry without any outward sign of it, a motionless swell and clench in my chest, and step back again until I can no longer be seen. They must have heard it. My song. But I didn't ask for it to play, not out in the real world. It was something for myself.

I haven’t chosen any of this, these things that keep happening, these ludicrous impossibilities. So maybe this is what a God looks like. The only one I know of can’t be proven or disproven, and everything starts from something. If I am an amalgamation of what they refuse to see as anything other than miracles, of hope and holiness and whatever they think the world is _supposed_ to be, I - "I" - become a force beyond my own control. You can’t stop a symbol. Because a symbol is always a symptom and never a cause. You fight that, and you’re an ant trying to stop the boulder rolling down the mountain. Just because you see it before it really picks up speed doesn't mean you can do anything about it. I don't know how to stop doing things on accident. And I don't think I can handle trying to force myself into a small enough container to really, truly minimize whatever the fuck I am.

Invisibility lets me hop easily from the roof, and a barrier to keep sound out allows me privacy. The silence is so profound I wonder that I haven't thought to do it before now.

I walk alone into the snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unedited, second and first drafts respectively, chapter title is a note to self


	26. Ding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The random name you’ll run into in this chapter is this world’s Hero of Ferelden. She was a Cousland and now rules with Alistair.

I don’t go back. I stand still for so long that I am dusted with snow like a dead animal. For a while, I listen as people look for me.

Mid-morning, I just lay my ass down on a soft bed of white under a tree and go to sleep.

I was supposed to meet Zevran this morning; there’s no way there isn’t some sort of panic over the fact that no one can find me. And I need someone to wake me if I sleep too long.

Ignoring all of those things makes me feel like I have just a little bit of power over my life, and it’s a feeling I need. Plus I don’t think I can face seeing all of them again, not yet, not when they feel like they’re all dead and hollow.

I sleep, and I’m in Fen’s woods instantly. For just a moment, I can pretend it only feels different because I’m alone. But of course if I have to pretend, it’s because I already know better.

Generally, I see no point in whining or complaining. I think self-pity is a waste of time and energy, and “unfair” isn’t really a word in my lexicon. But _fuck_ if this is not getting old.

The source of the disturbance I feel coalesces in front of me, thirty feet or so out. It’s a spirit, humanoid but translucent, with no facial features whatsoever, not even a suggestion of them. It’s a medium-pale blue with a tone both white and silver weaving nebulously in and out of the rest of it, and it feels solid and heavy, but ephemeral at the same time. It’s like a mountain, and the breeze that sweeps and curls over it.

My brows pull together. It means no harm, or it couldn’t be here. So why did it set my hackles raising?

Silence stretches out as we stare at each other. The spirit doesn’t move or twitch or waver.

“...Hello?” I finally try.

I feel it smile, and suddenly it’s like a statue that’s come to life. “I am Truth. May I approach?” Its voice is androgynous and light and almost detached.

It’s polite, at least. I hesitate, wary, but dip my chin, and it moves - floats - forward until it is a short but polite distance away.

“I have something for you,” it says, a little more life in its voice. “A gift.”

...That explains the unease, then.

I almost say “That’s very generous of you.” But if it’s a spirit of Truth, lying would be rather pointless. Maybe it’s safe to assume it’s like Cole, and that niceties are as unnecessary as they would be lost on it. So I just ask, “From who?”

“I am not supposed to say.” It sounds apologetic. Sort of.

I smile and laugh a little, a wolfish thing, an unintentional warning of stress. “Of course you aren’t.” Just like with Cole.

It raises a hand, and energy pulls from its body and coalesces into its flattened palm, forming a sphere of green Fade-light, dense at the center and diffuse around the edges. It isn’t quite Fen-harel’s jade, but that is there at the center, like a core. There’s just something else mixed through that I can’t quite make out.

“...I don’t suppose you just got this in the last day or so?” I ask. I fear I already know the answer.

It shakes its head, and confirms my suspicion. “I have been waiting to speak to you alone.”

“...Of course you have,” I sigh. At least it’s not ominous or anything.

“He would not allow you to take it.”

Fen’harel, it means. I feel that like I do the non-verbal communication from other elvhen, like the intent behind their words. My hackles go up at the implication that he is in charge of me before I get a chance to remember exactly how much more than me he knows about this kind of thing. And to admit to myself that if he said I should leave it alone, there’s very little chance I wouldn’t.

“So… why should I, then?”

“Because you are not him. You can Listen. You can Hear. He has never had that gift.” ‘A failing of the very clever, often.’

I want to. To just “listen,” and stop there. I can’t deny that the presence of the spirit is soothing, like it… well, like it’s exactly what it says it is. Open and true and clear. No surprises, no useless twists. It isn’t a lie, what it says it is, either - nothing about it feels strange like Desire had when it had came to me before that first attack.

I look at Truth a little sideways.

“It will not harm you,” the spirit says.

“It’s not really me I’m worried about.”

“It is intended only to help.”

“And this ‘help’ isn’t likely to have some sort of horrifying consequence?” I ask, dry.

“A lock was placed that should not have been. This will open it. What will result, I cannot say.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

It cants its head as if confused. “I said ‘cannot.’ I am not omniscient.”

I can’t help the twitch of my lips into a wry little smile. It’s a literal creature, and suddenly I have an appreciation for how frustrating it must be for other people to talk to me sometimes.

“What does it _do,_ Truth?” My tone is friendly now, if tired and drawn.

Its attention is steady on me, its hand not moving where it still offers the orb. Hard to get tired when you don’t have muscles, I suppose. “The mechanics of the magic involved are quite complex. You will not understand them. I was told, ‘Something was changed that should not have been. This will repair it.’ It will open a door.”

“To?”

“A place you may find answers.”

“Those haven’t been especially good to me lately. Which is almost poetically ironic.” Given my obsession with, well, the truth. “Answers to what?” I ask.

“Some of your questions.”

My teeth clamp together. Surely I’m not _this_ impossible to talk to. Besides, if you can’t have a conversation with a spirit, it isn’t the _spirit’s_ fault. We’re all exceptionally dense in our own way, I suppose.

“It may also cause you a good deal of annoyance.”

Par for the course lately, at least.

Truth is literal and honest, but just as obviously capable of omitting information. Information in concerning areas. And its phrasing is very… particular. I just can’t tell how menacing I should find the shadows behind its words.

I figure I’ll start where I am and go from there. “I don’t suppose this door might slam shut behind me once I go through? Or that it opens to some terrifying hellscape, or that something else might make use of it, too?”

It cants its head again and doesn’t answer right away.

“Or some _one?”_ I add. Normally I find the circumstantial and figurative nature of language infuriating. But there is a line.

“‘Door’ is an ill-suited metaphor. Reversal may be a better word. You are shut away from something. This does not create, it corrects.”

I stall again on the crumbs of information it has been leaving out.

“Your situation is complex,” it says by way of explanation.

I huff a laugh, brittle and dry.

“I don’t suppose you’d play a guessing game with me about whoever or whatever gave this to you? Twenty questions, hot and cold, even just a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ if I guess right?”

It shakes its head.

“Nothing at all? No loopholes?”

“No.”

“Magnificent,” I mutter. I nibble at my bottom lip, thinking.

“You are intuition,” Truth says, and it is with more emotion than I have heard from it yet. It sounds kindred. “What do you feel?”

Suledin told me I’m pieces of many different things (if I can’t help seeing spirits tortured and dissected in my mind’s eye at the memory, I can hardly be blamed). There’s no reason to think Intuition can’t be among them. And “You are intuition” is a pretty hard phrase to warp or misinterpret.

The problem is, what I feel is a pull to take the thing. It’s a little like the draw I felt to the fox statue, but not so much that it makes me more uneasy than I already am. And I am, because, too many parts of this are an exercise in Vagary 101, and you don’t keep secrets unless you have secrets to keep.

I look down at the orb. Light curls from it like nitrogen from dry ice.

“...God damnit,” I bite out in resignation. My hand is already reaching toward it.

The instant my fingertip brushes the faded light at its edge, the sphere vanishes from Truth’s hand and shoots up into my arm. It permeates me like liquid pigment dropped into a tiny vial of water, then fades to a thin film, and then it’s just gone, like it was never there at all, like nothing happened.

I am an idiot.

I am an idiot, and I am going to be the reason this world shatters and millions of people die horribly. Perhaps I was made with a spirit of “poor decisions” or “gullibility.” You know, for laughs.

“Fear is not corrected information,” Truth says. “It is only fear.”

Then it holds out its hand again, and another ball of light forms, this one gold and iridescent silver, smaller and more solid than the last.

I look down at it, then back up to Truth. “You cannot be serious.”

“I don’t understand jests,” it says. “The message I was asked to give with this is simple: ‘Tell her it’s time to level up.’”

Too many things try to push out of my throat all at once and I end up just making a quiet sort of choking noise. When I do manage to speak, it’s an incredulous, “Level _up?_ Are they out of their mind? Do you know how hard I already have to work to seem normal?”

“No one thinks you’re normal,” it says, obviously confused.

“That is really not my point!”

It waits, calm and unbothered, while I bubble around the tattered edges of myself like scalding, viscous, burnt porridge.

I growl and something inhuman comes out in the sound, but I’m already shoving my hand forward again, because really why the fuck not at this point? In for a penny.

This magic, when it settles in me, I can still feel. But it’s soaking in like an ointment. I am… lighter, in every sense of the word. And white-gold on the inside. I look down at my hands, and I feel bigger than my own skin, massive. I am _vibrating._

My voice is a little tremulous because I force myself to speak before the feeling is gone. “If you try to give me another one, Truth, I will burn this place to the ground.”

It cants its head.

“It’s an expression.”

“I know. I am an old spirit.”

“Is that why you can do this?” ‘Omit things.’ It can be argued that truth is as much in the completeness of a thing as in literal honesty. Without appropriate context, it’s too easy to think one thing is something else. So I wonder if it’s painful for this spirit, giving me information while leaving it out. Is a secret a lie?

“Sometimes,” Truth says, again in reply to my thoughts. “When I was young, I thought I was hard lines and defined spaces. But I have learned the subtlety of my nature. The one I have come here for seeks to bring greater truth to the world. This is a small sacrifice for a much larger gain.”

The ends justify the means. What a hellscape of quicksand this is.

“You know me,” Truth says quietly. “Better than many, in this world or the ones before. If I had told you everything about the magic, you may not have taken it. But I am glad you did. You can help in a way no one else can. You are unique.”

Those last words echo through my head from another time, and I see the glow of a secreted pond backed by two statues rearing stags. There is a man there, close, in the illuminated night.  _You are unique. In all of Thedas--_   But the words hit a wall in my mind and just... vanish.

I feel Truth frown.

“They… the one I came for, they are sorry,” it says haltingly. “For all of this. ...Mostly. They laugh sometimes when your temper frays. They think it’s ‘cute.’ But their enemies are yours, save one.” Its face turns a little away. “They think sometimes, about a world they could have made where you would not have to hurt. But they will not stop.”

“Who is that one?” I ask, my skin prickling. “The exception.”

“Fen’harel.”

I ossify where I stand.

“It is hoped the correction will cause him discomfort, but that falls in the shadow of the greater goal. His perceived transgressions are minute compared to those of the others.”

“That goal being spreading larger truth to the world?”

“Along two others.”

“And… those others?”

It does not answer, which is its answer. If it knows, it won’t say.

“Who are the others it considers enemies?”

It cants its head yet again, very slight this time. I can feel it want to answer, but it doesn’t.

“Are they from the past?”

Nothing.

“What does this person or thing want to do to Fen’harel?”

“Ultimately, to see to his torment and death. But that is not yet planned.”

Something in me stutters.

“Can you--” The words choke themselves off, and I have to clear my throat and try again. “Can you tell me anything else that I might find at all useful, Truth? Especially about Fen’harel?”

It nods slowly, a single and deep bob of its chin.

Dread floods me, because I know the answer to this question but I have to ask anyway. _”Will_ you?”

It considers this for a long time, and finally says, “I would counsel patience. It is not something well-cultivated in the shortness of your recent lives, but it will serve you here. You wish to sleep.”

I blink at the abrupt subject change. “Live _s?”_ I ask.

It pauses, then bows slightly, kindly, and is gone.

I curse over the very nature of Spirits, the Fade, and all things magical before I do give in and sleep. It isn’t like the world can’t screw itself over and glut on plots and intrigues without them. Mine managed quite well.

 

* * * * *

 

Years ago, a strange and gifted boy with a vocabulary in the single digits lived with his father in the servant’s quarters of a mansion. He whispered something to its mistress one evening in an alcove by light of candles. The memory of the words drift through the Fade like a breeze, inconsequential or not, depending on what ears exist to hear it. Like everything else.

"One day the magic will come back. All of it. Everyone will be just like they were. The shadows will part and the skies will open wide. When he rises, everyone will see."

 

* * * * *

 

I wake covered in a gentle dusting of snow. And a blanket. I can tell it was a man who put it there, who had porridge and cheese and beer for breakfast and then got lucky directly after. With a blonde woman. Traces of anything he’d been feeling when he’d been here are gone, though, so he hasn’t been by _too_ recently, and several sets of heavy footprints all around me are softened with fresh snow.

The metal and leather of armor and weapons is nearby, and has been for at least a few hours. I have two guards, it seems, but they’re keeping their distance. So no one is panicking about where I am, at least.

I sigh, but it’s an outlay of peace more than an attempt to hold together, not chipped and frayed and weary like it would have been last night. Sleeping, actually sleeping, going away in the Fade, had been an excellent - and kind - decision.

I rise and fold the blanket neatly as I walk up to the soldiers on easy feet - a woman and a man. “How long did I sleep?” I ask personably.

They whirl around, hands going to swords, and the instant they realize it’s me, each of them drops to one knee to the ground, bows their head, and clasps a fist over their heart. I hadn’t realized I hadn’t been making any sound. Truth’s words about “leveling up” come to mind with a little nip.

I look down at the tops of their helmets in silence. They don’t move.

So this is going to be a thing, then, after last night. Fantastic.

“Right,” I mutter, walking past. “Thanks, then.”

They’re big kids. They’ll figure out how to stand up when they feel like it.

 

* * * * *

 

During the Fifth Blight, Zevran Arainai hadn’t been especially young. His pale skin, aged and darkened under the Antivan sun, had shown it. He’s more than a decade older now, the better part of forty years old, and the age suits him. I wouldn’t have expected it, not with his life and that sun leeching the years away.

He’s leaning comfortably against a support pillar when I walk into the same library where I spoke with Josephine and Elden late into the night. He’s slender, like all elves, but not as willowy as many I’ve seen, and his hair is worn exactly how I remember it. I assume he was searched before being allowed alone into a room with me, yet he still has no fewer than two daggers on him, one of which is poisoned.

I do so love a man who is good at his work.

He stands with his side to the door, and though he seems at ease, though he doesn’t move when I enter and the door is closed behind me, I know he’s tight, and a little afraid, and _pissed._ Before his motionlessness can be called hostile, he turns fluidly and bows. “The famed Prophet of Andraste,” he says by way of greeting. “Of all the faithful gathered to your side, I am most flattered to be sought out personally.”

“Are you.” My tone is friendly and informal and makes no attempt to hide my opinion of his sincerity.

When he rises and takes me in, he allows a little smile onto his mouth, an expression that seems as well worn as, perhaps, a very old pair of fine leather boots. And oh, he is seething underneath. It comes off him like the scent of pepper. But I think he’s curious, too.

“This is normally where I would extend some piece of flattery about how the rumors of your beauty do you no justice. But in this case, it would not be a lie. As you are no doubt aware, I have something of a reputation to maintain. A matter of professional standard, you see.” He has that ‘I’m either trying to seduce you or about to kill you, but you won’t know which until it’s too late’ silk in his voice.

I don’t like that he’s angry at me. I don’t blame him, of course, and he doesn’t know me from Eve. But I know him, so it stings.

I consider and discard several replies, most of them following his playful lead. In the end, I just don’t have the stamina. But I don’t expect blunt honesty will work any better than smooth lies. I expect he assumes everything out of everyone’s mouth is a lie. He wouldn’t be alive otherwise.

When I don’t say anything, he tries, “I must admit, however, that I have never known anyone to be quite so unaccepting of an unfavorable answer to a request. And I am literally paid to murder people. You would be surprised how many are willing to part with obscene amounts of coin over an imagined slight. Magical dream coercion is a first,” he goes on lightly, “but I know some people who would be very interested in that particular skill. Should you ever tire of this ‘Chosen of the Maker’ business. Or, I suppose, of the Creators, no?”

I look at him, at the challenge of him, the mental acrobatics he has on hand, and whatever is holding me upright leeches away all at once. I walk over to a large armchair, sit down heavily, and drop my head into my hands.

He isn’t expecting that, at least. But it’s still hard to find anything to say when you know that no matter what you choose, it’s going to be assumed a lie.

“No one has tried to leave yet,” I say into my hands. My voice seems to have aged by about sixty years in the last ten seconds, all gravel and tiredness. “It’s my hope that whoever… whatever… ugh, that wherever the dreams came from, they weren’t smart enough to realize they’d need to _keep_ people here, not just get them here.” My brow wrinkles, a thought occurring to me. “Unless they just wanted to destroy us by flooding us with an impossible number of refugees and the ire of every lord, lady, and nation in the known world.” I lift my head only to let it flop heavily against the back of the chair. I stare up at the ceiling. “Either way, really.” I shrug on shoulder. I’m not sure it looks like more than an awkward twitch given my position.

“I wanted you here, that’s true. I was sad when you said no, but not surprised if I’m being honest. I still want you here, but you earned your own choices a long time ago, and I imagine you fight to keep them.” His life over the last ten years is much more blank space than not. “I don’t know how, but I’ll make sure whatever supplies you want for the trip home, or wherever, are packed up for you if you want to be one of the first to try leaving.” I pause, then more quietly, say, “I’m sorry. For whatever that’s worth. I don’t expect you to believe me, but I am.”

And then I have tears spilling down the sides of my face, and it doesn’t matter that they’re infuriating, because they won’t be stopped. It’s like this conversation is a representation of every ounce of power, of control I feel I’ve had ripped from my hands, and it all hits me at once. And isn’t that a laugh, a thing like me feeling powerless. Maybe I’m having a pity party. I’m not, but I could be. Maybe I’m mentally ill. Maybe I just feel like hell and I haven’t let it really hit me yet. I stay still and silent and hope he won’t notice.

“If I can give you anything besides the supplies and the apology you’ll probably be laughing about for the next three hundred miles or so, it’s yours. I’m s--” Sorry. ‘I’m sorry.’ But I can’t make the words come out again, because they’d be exactly that useless.

I take a careful breath. But he’s not leaving. Why isn’t he leaving? I want nothing more than for him to walk out of the room so I can tip my head back up, wipe the tears away, and figure out what I need to do first to get ready to leave Haven again.

“Do you know,” he ventures, his voice speculative and thoughtful, “you are not what I expected.”

I laugh dryly.

“I take it that is a popular opinion?”

I steel myself, then raise my head and swipe the tears from my face, first one side, then the other. I look at him. “I have the slightest idea how many versions of me are out there, Zevran. How could I possibly be what anyone expects? I mean look at me. I look like a damn sixteen year-old and a twenty-six year old in one. I’m an alien, and I’m not. I’m a person or a god or… Jesus. You know what I am? I’m great big goddamned mess. And if I was trained for any of this, I can’t remember it.” I pause, then go on more calmly. “I’m not Alaine.” She was brought up to rule and command and oversee. As far as I can remember, all I was brought up to be was broken and solitary and to seem like anything but what I really am.

Zevran considers me, his face showing nothing and his scent shifting, coming down from the surprise of hearing me mention Alaine so casually.

“I didn’t mean to drag you here,” I say with heavy sincerity. “I mean, I _didn’t,_ but you know what I mean. I didn’t mean to drag anyone here. I got spat out of the Fade and dropped into the remains of a temple and probably hundreds of people, and they put me in charge of this hail-mary play. Now I have all these things I can do but I don’t know how to save the world. We don’t have magic where I’m from. Or other races, and we still can’t manage to get along. Zevran... I don’t even know how to brush my teeth. But do you know what’s next on my list after you leave? Shatter the beliefs of the world’s dalish. Then travel hundreds of miles in a matter of hours, kill a demon masquerading as a powerful political figure, convince the rebel factions of mages and templars to _work together_ so one of the world’s original Magisters, as in tromping-around-the-black-city Magisters, can’t turn them into a superpowered army, and stop no fewer than three people and things from literally ripping the world asunder.” I laugh, and it’s a little off-kilter. “Most of that falls into the next week!

“Do you know what I’d _like_ to do when you leave? I’d like to spend time with my horse. And learn how to read.”

If I expect surprise from him at that admission, I’m doomed to be disappointed.

He cants his head at me and crosses his arms over his chest. It looks relaxed, but it also puts his hands closer to one of his weapons. “If I may, why did you ask for me? By all reports, you are many things. A divine creature, a seer and oracle. Compassionate, wise, and powerful. Yet you wished to choose as one of your champions not only an Antivan Crow, but one so cutthroat that his own organization finds hunting him to be a worthy pastime?”

I laugh again, and this one at least has a little life in it. “You just called me a seer and then lied your face off about yourself. I wanted you because I know you and I like you and because frankly… we have no shortage of people who are already being depressing about this whole ‘destruction of the world’ thing. You’ve got saving it twice under your belt now. You’re an old pro.”

He gives me a look.

“Yeah, I know, I just did a pretty good impersonation of one of those depressing people. Its been a really long few days, I’m off my A game.”

His look turns assessing, folded into the layers of humor and his sharp mind. “So it is a jester you require?” He pauses, and his voice takes on a different timbre. “Or is it perhaps something more… personal?”

It’s obvious what he’s implying. He’s not even trying to hide it. But I can’t wrap my head around why he would throw this line into the water right now, or what he’s trying to fish out with it. Is it a test of that “seer” business?

“I’m gay,” I say flatly.

“And a poor liar. You look lovely when vexed, however.”

 _”My point is,_ turn it off. I’m off-limits.”

“Ahhh, an effective strategy. Making a thing forbidden is always such a _good_ deterrent, after all.”

“How did Wynne not murder you?”

“I am remarkably charming. But why should I have to tell you this?”

I take the bridge of my nose between two fingers and mutter to myself.

“I did not quite catch that,” he says, far too cocksure.

“I said your hair looks pretty.”

I adore this man. I even love him. From the perspective of someone he considers a friend. But I’m not someone he considers a friend, not right now, and maybe not ever. I don’t know him from the perspective of a mark or a client or an enemy, and I’m at a loss for what to say. Trying to talk him into staying now, when he didn’t want to come here in the first place, seems like a shitty thing to do. I should get over that. The resources we have on hand are more important than my feelings.

But the Inquisition didn’t have Zevran before and yes, a single grain of rice may tip the scales, but he’s just one man, and there is no counting the rice I’ve already shuffled around since I got here. So I stand up to leave. There are a good dozen other things that need taking care of in the next day or so.

“Look I gave you the recruitment speech,” I say. “Sort of. ...Well not really at all, but you know what I mean. You know what I want, but I’m not going to force you to do anything. Drink the punch or don’t. Either way,” I turn and walk toward the door, “if you’ll leave Josephine with some information, I’ll see what I can do about getting the Crows off your back once I have some clout to work with. Hopefully for good. But no promises.”

His shock rockets into the air.

I open the door but pause halfway through with my hand on the frame, and turn back just enough to look at him. To take him in. I want to know him, to be around him. But Zevran is an independent creature; I’ll likely never see him again, and I can’t spare the concentration to feel more than a passing wave of sadness about that, not right now.

“I’m really glad I got to meet you,” I say quietly. Then, with a little quirk of something approaching a smile, I add, “We haven’t talked much, but… I can see why she likes you.”

“Who?”

“Alaine.” I pause, then turn to go. “Safe journey, Zev.”

His heart takes off as I close the door behind me.

It occurs to me that if I was going to hook him into staying, I may have just inadvertently played the one card that would do it. It reminds me of surprising the guards without meaning to. It almost reminds me of feeling like I’m not the only person in my body.

I have to reassure myself that Daern’thal is either dead, or locked away for good. He can’t give me orders if he can’t reach me, right? Except someone _is_ there, some _thing_ is, and whatever it is is powerful enough to warp Fen’harel’s magic, presumably yank me here from another world, and keep him guessing all the while.

Until I get absorbed in my next task, I have a hard time forgetting the sight of the orbs I took from Truth. _“A lock was placed that should not have been. This will open it,”_ it had said. But ‘should not have been’ according to who? I can’t think of anything barred from me, or me from it, that I want opened. My memories might be nice for context, but the feeling that I shouldn’t want them back is so strong I don’t question it anymore.

Maybe “dad” put a spirit of Impulse in me. Maybe he thought it’d be good for a laugh.

I can’t help but picture how satisfying it would be to punch him in the face.

 

* * * * *

 

Elden changes her mind about staying in Haven - she wants to hear what I tell the others. But she can’t vouch for anyone among the dalish who might take over her job. How she’s been doing it alone I cannot fathom.

Our good fortune when it comes to the situation with the elves continues, though, because Merrill is found, camped alone well back from Haven and the other dalish. I don’t think she has the temperament for what Elden has been doing, but as it turns out there are several elves she can vouch for personally, and I trust her judgement. Which I should probably find ironic, or at least a little concerning.

She isn’t in the best shape around me at first - there’s a lot of crying and bowing in the snow. If only she knew that Mythal herself had told her the dalish bow too easily - so I pass her as kindly as I can to Hawke and Fenris and leave Elden to find the people Merrill spoke of. Among the millions who must already be here. And to fill them in on the situation and their jobs. In two days.

I split my own time between reading lessons and a crash course in how not to get shivved in broad daylight or eaten alive by Orlesian nobility. She also brings someone in who can make my short hair more fashionable. It ends up as short as Cassandra’s, and it’s strangely freeing for such a small thing. I also get to meet Thedas’s version of pomade.

I’m not good enough to completely hide the fact that I’m uncomfortable around everyone. Walking around is surreal, like a lucid dream. Or nightmare. I know my discomfort is noticed, but I can’t do anything about it. I’ll ask Solas how he adapted when I see him. Added to that, I feel more conspicuous, and more like a coward and an asshole every hour I am not outside of the gates talking to the elves. That avoidance is the same thing that keeps me from letting myself sleep at night. I don’t have answers for anyone, and that’s all they’re going to want. I don’t feel like I _can_ answer, not when I’m tumbling end over end the way I am.

I have plenty to think about, at least. Aside from my personal nonsense, the Inquisition is stretched far too thin. Between the people forced to come here, most of who must be destitute by now if they weren’t from the beginning, and the fact that nobility and foreign dignitaries are probably going to break out the sanctions and military posturing soon, we need armor. Literally and figuratively.

Which gives me a very curious idea.


	27. Elves are Full of Surprises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nua lost a bet to Varric and Bull, idk when. It was probably something trivial, like for goofs, but since she lost she has to wear an Antaam-sar (that sexy-lady Qunari outfit) for a week (talked down from two). I’m guessing it was sourced from Bull being Bull, and she had probably been whining about having to wear armor. 
> 
> The stipulation was that it stays on whether they’re on the road or working with refugees or meeting some fancypants important person. I imagine part of the thing, if I ever write it, might go something like this:
> 
> For some reason I can only think must be entirely unsettling, Bull apparently carries an Antaam-saar with him. I understand the outfit in Seheron, where the heat is extreme and the culture doesn’t seem terribly prudish. And I actually really like the things. But we are not in Seheron.
> 
> “...I don’t want to know why you have this, do I.” I am not brave enough to smell it.
> 
> “All you need to know is that it’s clean, Boss.”
> 
> “That does not reassure me. If it was supposed to reassure me, you’re very bad at reassuring me.”
> 
> “It has sentimental value!”
> 
> “No it doesn’t.”
> 
> “Hey, if you don’t like little white lies, then don’t... I don’t know, don’t do whatever you do to sniff them out.”
> 
> “Wait, what? You can tell when people are lying?” Varric asks. It is the closest to dismayed I have ever heard him, now or in Kirkwall. “This gets less fair by the day. I liked it better when you didn’t speak Common.”
> 
> “Who would have thought things would be easier when the Maker’s chosen was mute.”
> 
> “Anyone with half a brain.”
> 
> “That’s giving people waaaay too much credit, Tethras,” Bull says.

The cells below the Chantry stay empty as far as I know. But for stone. Tonnes and tonnes of stone, just sitting around being used for nothing but walls. Given that most people are in bed, it takes a little time to find someone who can tell me if any parts of the lower floor are load-bearing (they aren’t). He is so groggy he probably wonders if the whole thing is a weird dream, but after talking to him I fetch Beast, close off the whole lower floor, and get to work. He’s with me any time I sleep or work in relative privacy. Given his aggression and aversion to eye contact, I don’t take him out in public, but I think we might get there eventually.

Josephine is eating when I fetch her the next afternoon, so I insist she bring her tea with her. When she sees what I’ve done, she drops the cup and it breaks into large pieces on the cold stone. I didn’t think people actually did that, especially not someone like her. It is the highest praise she could possibly give.

“How...?” Her fingers are covering her mouth. I think she wants to hug me.

“I spend a lot of time thinking,” I explain. As I do, Beast sniffs at the spilled tea. Then tastes it. His opinion seems ambivalent. “Probably too much. The thing is, without the veil getting in the way, and with whatever I am, it turns out I can do what some of the more powerful mages among the ancient elves used to do. Such as alter matter.” I hold a hand out to indicate the stacks and piles around us.

What had been stone bricks and the rock behind them, enduring and cold and slow, now sits in neat pyramid stacks all over the floor, shaped into smooth bars shining gold in the light of the torches. Coins are no good for the large amounts of money the Inquisition probably needs to be pushing around. Plus when I tried to print the Inquisition signia on them, it had looked like some sort of deranged, hellish tentacle monster.

“This… Your Worship, this must be more gold than the entire Orlesian empire can claim!”

I stand taking in my work with my hands on my hips, pleased and satisfied. “Good then. ...Maybe we just don’t tell too many people about it right away.”

A burble of laughter escapes her. “No. I should think not.”

“This is part of what I learned while I was gone,” I tell her. “Sort of. I don’t know if I could have done something like this before now,” before Truth’s magic, “but in general I just thought that until I got a chance to talk to everyone, it was better word not get out that I can do even more than people already thought. Better to be underestimated. Anyway, _that_ got me thinking about ways to change armor and weapons for the soldiers so they were a lot stronger than they looked, or even just to fabricate better materials. I have the blacksmith working on some things already, for the core group. From there, knowing what a tight position the Inquisition as a whole was in… well, it was a short leap.

“I wanted to do more. Build up our supplies of ores and herbs and other materials, but I could only manage to create what I've had a chance to get a close look at since I got here. Iron and Elfroot and Fennec fur and the like. All that's in the cells in the back chamber," I say, jabbing a thumb over my shoulder. "Tell people whatever you want about where it came from, or whether it had anything to do with me. I can make more whenever you like, obviously. It takes time, but that's about it.”

Josephine gives an incredulous little laugh. “Oh, we should be fine." She's staring at the stacks of gold around her, and I can't help but take another good look, too. It's a relief to have accomplished something I can see and touch and to know, in a measurable way, that I've helped.

Her scent shifts to unease, and I look over at her, brows up. "What is it?"

She laughs a little to herself. "Are you... forgive me for asking, but... do you truly believe the Maker did not send you?"

I study her, taking a little time to think of what to say. Beast helps, because I have to pause and tell him off from trying to eat one of the broken pieces of cup. He gives an annoyed swish of his tail and bites down anyway, crunching experimentally a few times. The glass doesn’t seem to bother him. But it doesn’t seem to be tasty either - he just absently spits the pieces back out and starts nosing Josie’s hip like she’s hiding food. But he’s gentle about it, and though it makes her a little nervous, she doesn’t seem to mind too much.

"If there is a God, Josephine, I can't pretend to know its will. But what I did here? That isn't god. It's magic. ...Which arguably could be god, or at least come from it. Personally I don't know how people demonize magic when, hey, how else is some celestial being going to create your entire world? Anyway," I give a shake of my head to get myself back on track. "...Part of what I have to tell the others? I belong to a race for who magic was as natural as a beating heart or a lungful of air. We lived in a world where our connection to the Fade was unfettered, and in that world, my connection was stronger than most. And now, with whatever I do to negate the Veil...."

"You are a piece of that world alive today," she finishes.

I give her a little nod.

"...And you do not see the Maker's hand in this?"

I look down and laugh quietly. "Like I said, Josie, I wouldn't know either way. That depends entirely on what your concept of what god is. What I  _do_ know is that I'm here. And you're here, and so are stacks of gold and a lot of strong, dedicated, talented people, and we all want to try and help this world be what we know it can." What  _they_ know it can, anyway. I'm more pessimistic than many, but I am more than happy to support the beliefs of people who are more idyllic. They're the ones to look up to. "And please, if you don't want me to address you so informally, let me know." My voice is sincere, and so am I. And she feels that. I can tell by the way her scent changes. 

She says nothing.

 

* * * * *

 

Briala is found easily enough, but since I’m leaving again so soon and for so long, she opts only to send a letter so as not to take up my “invaluable time,” as she puts it. She expresses her gratitude and promises to do everything she can for “our people’s cause.”

Of Sera, there has been no word.

 

* * * * *

 

Very early in the morning, once I’m dressed for the trip, I meet up with the others in the main hall of the Chantry. It’s abandoned but for a few people saying prayers and a small handful of sisters cleaning and snuffing out candles. Hawke, Fenris, Cake, and Elden will all be coming with me. Merrill will walk out with us to meet the dalish, which will be our only stop before leaving Haven.

Zevran, to my great surprise, is with them. He’s dressed in armor, and the strap of a travel pack is slung across his chest. He takes in my outfit with an openly appreciative sweep of eyes and greets me with, “My dear Prophet, I am beginning to understand why your people follow you with such enthusiasm.”

Elden is not nearly so amused by my wardrobe choice, but she tries to hide it.

“I lost a bet,” I reply flatly.

Hawke has a large bit of dried apple in her mouth as she volunteers, “I nearly had to kiss the Arishok because of a bet.”

“That was a card game,” Fenris corrects. “Broodily,” as Varric might say.

“Was it? To be honest I don’t remember much after the drinking contest with Isabella.” She turns stark. “I learned a very important lesson that night.”

Zevran laughs. “I had a theory that she hides some of the alcohol in her ample bosom. I cannot fathom the mechanics, but it is very effective. I never once saw her lose, not even to men twice her size. Literally, she once drank a man twice her size under the table. He was truly massive. Then she beat him soundly again during a rather lively scuffle when he tried to renege on his payment.”

Zevran is sweeping me up and down again - mostly covertly, at least - lingering especially on the vast expanse of bared torso.

“Shut up and let’s go,” I snipe with a scathing roll of my eyes. “You’re a lech.”

I head for the doors, and the others follow.

“Not true!” Zevran protests. “Lechers have no subtlety, no appreciation for the _art_ of seduction. And why should I not appreciate a masterwork of such exquisite beauty if our most holy Maker - or Creators, if you prefer - has chosen to place in front of my eyes? Also, I would like to point out that you claimed to know me quite well, most holy and divine Seer.”

“I’m not a seer,” a nearby chantry sister looks up, scandalized, “and knowing you’re a lech doesn’t make you less of a lech, Zevran.”

“Now I am simply wounded. You called me ‘Zev’ not two days ago. Have I fallen so quickly from our lady’s good graces?”

I laugh, sardonic.

Hawke leans in toward Fenris and whispers quietly, “I think I missed him.”

“You would,” he complains just as softly. “Miss him all you want, but if he touches you, I’ll cut it off.”

“Cut what off?”

“Whatever I feel like in the moment. You know how I like to be spontaneous.”

Hawke snorts a quiet laugh. Zevran is already trying and failing to strike up a conversation with Elden.

 

* * * * *

 

I don’t end up saying much to the assembled elves by way of The Big Message. I don’t want to tear a hole in their world, then leave for over a month. I feel better about it once I take the time to make certain it’s me making the decision though, and not my fear. It’s always the decision that’s the hard part.

Hawke, Fenris, and Cake wait a respectful distance back as we approach the “dalish” camp. I’m hoping that having Merrill with me will help mend whatever fences had her camped by herself when so many of her people were nearby, especially since she’s staying behind. Zevran I asked to come so the city elves in the group feel a little more represented on my side. What they make of the fact that my outfit is qunari, if they’re even aware of it, I have no idea.

The camp is made up of what looks to be a large common area closest to the gates, with aravels lining a wide path behind it that abuts Haven’s outer wall. Normally, the aravels grow much larger than they appear and the extra space is used for work or living or storage, but that seems to be a secret they’re keeping to themselves for now. There is one lone tent pitched near the middle of the line of wagons. Areas for cooking, cleaning prey, and other necessities are scattered among them, and everything is kept immaculately clean and tidy. There are no signs that any hala are among the camp.

Judging by ages, some clans have sent their Keepers, and some their Firsts. There are far more elves in human clothing with unmarked faces than there are those with the patterns of vallaslin, but staffs are _everywhere._ As warily as they’re being eyed by our soldiers, I’m glad we don’t have templars with us yet.

I’d like to claim that I can’t be sure how many strange looks and averted eyes are due to what they think of me, and how many are due to how little clothing I’m wearing - especially in the white landscape. But that would be a lie. Most of them get over it quickly enough, anyway.

Their - largely the dalish’s - primary concern seems to be whether I’m being coerced or harmed in any way. Which isn’t what I was expecting, but maybe I should have been. Once I convince them it’s the opposite, a tension leaves them as a whole, like a great beast letting its hackles down. I’ve been assuming their stiff watchfulness was because they don’t like being here, but apparently that wasn’t the bulk of it. Even though I didn’t really do anything to get them there, it makes me feel a little less useless about the situation, anyway.

The dalish take my let-down regarding the answers they’re here for suspiciously well, as Elden suggested they would. There is open argument on the part of some of the others until I’m able to explain my reason. Adding that they might be able to leave and that the Inquisition is in a position to help them get home goes a long way to mollify the most outraged of them. From most, though, it just garners a look of ill ease. They don’t _want_ to leave.

As we’re winding down to leave, a young dalish woman with a fine-boned face, irises like crinkled gold leaf, and sclera so cleanly white as to be arresting, steps forward. She bows, and the moment she begins to introduce herself, the moment I hear her voice, I know who she is.

“Ellana Mahallain, First of clan Lavellan,” she finishes. Mahallain, ‘one who is like the halla.’

I think my throat shrivels up to the size of a twig. My face, though, shows nothing. I suppose I know who it was who died to give me the Mark, now. I remember her shining black hair and the rich hue of her skin, how hard she fought, and feel a little ill.

What I feel more than that or the shock, though, is something that’s going to confuse and disturb the ever-loving hell out of me later: the instant, ferocious, and possessive - _possessive_ \- instinct, _need,_ to keep her _far_ the fuck away from Solas.

Just as abruptly as it comes, it is gone. And oddly, what’s left in my mind is a whisper of Fen’harel. What the actual--

“May we have the honor of knowing your vallaslin--” She finishes with a word that I think is supposed to mean “daughter of Mythal,” but translates more closely to “Curd of Justice.”

The blood drains from my face. I don’t think it’s visible, but something on my features obviously changes because suddenly Lavellan looks uncertain.

At odds with the rest of me, my voice pipes up, calm and sure and with a ready answer: “My vallaslin is nothing. It is freedom.”

Before she can question it, I warn them that what I have to tell them when I get back isn’t going to be what they expect. That it will be difficult and painful, and that it may change everything for them. I ask them to make sure they’re ready for that before they decide to stay.

Well, as ready as you can be to have your world upended.

 

* * * * *

 

Elden had the brilliant idea of using a cart to transport us. She assumed it would make my Steps easier if I could focus on bringing one large object along, instead of several small ones. She also assumed I would do it while riding a horse, rather than by pulling the cart myself. This is a source of amusement for too much of the morning, until I threaten to drop them all into the heart of a mountain. Elden is the only one who can tell for certain I'm not serious.

Everyone but Fenris is taking to the travel pace just fine, and his problem is only mental. I’ve still been paying him special attention - covertly - all day in case his marks have some kind of bad reaction to the “new” magic. Elden and Zevran are disoriented, but stoic in their own ways. Hawke has been enthusiastically nerding out, and Cake couldn’t seem to care less. In fact, as we break for lunch - I insisted. I don’t tell them this, but it’s so I can watch all of them for a while to make sure the magic isn’t messing with them - he sits at Hawke’s feet licking his paws without a care. I guess that it’s because mabari are bred with magic.

“I don’t understand what you said about the vallaslin,” Elden begins, fishing a meal out of her pack. “They _are_ freedom. that’s why we wear them, as a way to honor the gods and our vow to never again submit.”

I hesitate. “...Do you remember what I said that night by the creek? About trying to put together a picture that’s been broken and warped?”

She nods, wary.

I can’t look at her as I answer. “The vallaslin were slave markings, Elden. The Creators were slavers.” A sharp tang of something like aluminum hits the air. “Brutal, cruel, bloody, and self-serving. Mythal did her best to look after her people, but she still permitted the practice, and I don’t know what else. Anyone not powerful enough was a slave, and every slave was marked as a tribute to the god their master served.”

There’s a very particular scent when someone is utterly gutted. I close my eyes. I introduced Elden to these ideas almost two weeks ago, but I’d phrased them as a hypothetical. There’s no preparing someone for something like this, anyway.

Everyone has gone utterly still and silent. Except Cake. He is now licking his groin.

“I’m sorry,” I tell Elden as kindly as I can. When she doesn’t speak, I add, “Fen’harel? the ‘betrayer?’ He became the head of the movement to free the People. He fought the gods. He stopped them from literally ending the world. It was his great triumph, and his great mistake.”

“Mistake?” Hawke asks.

I look at her. Fenris is eyeing me like he might be seeing something _slightly_ less that horrible, but doesn’t trust it.

I explain how the Fade and the waking world used to be one, and what Fen’harel did, what he’d _had_ to do, in order to imprison the evanuris.

Fenris stops me. “Wait. You’re suggesting that a single person _created the veil?”_

“He was very powerful, Fenris,” I say quietly. “I don’t know if it was as simple as that, I wasn’t there for that part.”

“You weren’t….” Hawke trails off.

I smile at her sadly. “Right. I wasn’t there for _that_ part. I was there for the war, and I think a very long time before it began. I am one of the People. The original People. Technically.”

I give them a moment before going on. “Tevinter didn’t conquer the ancient elves, they didn’t infect them or steal away their immortality. They picked over the bones of a civilization that was already broken and dying. I assume Fen’harel had people he trusted to look after everything when he went down to recover immediately after, but none of them could have guessed what would happen. But it did, and what was left of the elvhen warred among themselves until the Tevine came to give them that last little push over the edge of the cliff. The evanuris started a chain reaction that ended with their entire race circling the drain.”

Elden tries to speak, but for a while, she can’t make anything come out. She finally manages to whisper, “So everything you said that night was true.” She pauses. “I always wondered. If they were gods. It was a thought I kept to myself, but it didn’t matter to me even if they weren’t, because I _knew_ they had existed and I _knew_ they were the best of us and I _knew_ they were the people who taught us everything worth knowing, who protected and guided us. But… they didn’t?” She asks bitterly, almost accusing. I know it isn’t directed at me. “So who the fuck told us all to follow you?”

“That’s the million dollar question, Elden,” I reply quietly.

“The what?” Fenris asks.

“The… sorry. Idioms. What I mean is, that’s the big question. There is a hand behind all of this, and it isn’t Sethius and it isn’t Fen’harel and it isn’t any of the evanuris.”

“How can you be so certain?” his voice is bleakly dark.

“Their prison is impenetrable,” I reply with certainty. “Unbreakable for all eternity, so long as the veil holds.”

“But there are _holes_ in the veil,” Hawke points out. “Large holes. Everywhere. Spitting out demons.”

I shake my head. “Doesn’t matter. It’s veil or no veil at all. Holes and damage are irrelevant here.”

“And you know this the way you know so many other things?” Zevran asks. “Or because you were there?” He doesn’t quite believe me when I say I’m elvhen. Which is good. He’d be stupid if he did.

“No,” I reply. “I know this because I know Fen’harel.”

“You… _know….”_ That’s all Elden can get out.

“Yes, but let’s get back on track. That’s a conversation to have in front of everyone, and I’d really rather not have to repeat any of these stories.” I breath carefully, in then out, sharp. I look at her. There’s doubt in her scent, something I have never smelled from her. It’s mixed with trepidation and a little fear, and immediately chased by a shame that’s almost angry.

“You were right,” I say, “they weren’t gods, not literally. They were extremely powerful, and they had eternity to make the People believe what they wanted. They _were_ different, though.” I explain how the earliest elvhen were spirits who took on physical form - I don’t speculate about exactly how they did it, though my assumption is that they just magicked up some meat cars - and how after that, it was an exceptionally rare practice. A forbidden one, without explicit permission from a Creator. “The evanuris were, and weren’t, fundamentally different. That was why they had to be imprisoned. You can’t just kill them. When they murdered Mythal--”

 _”What?"_ Elden yells it.

I look at her, solemn, and repeat the words more slowly. “When the other evanuris murdered Mythal in their own thirst for power, a piece of her lived on and eventually joined with a host.” At Fenris’ scowl I hold up a barring hand and explain, “It was voluntary. It would have been literally impossible otherwise. She passed that spark on to her descendants from time to time--”

“Is she still _alive?”_ Elden demands, horrified.

I nod, a single dip of my chin. “Asha’bellanar.”

“Maker,” Hawke breathes. “We _met_ her. ...I _knew_ she was creepy. No offense,” she tacks onto the end with a glance at Elden.

“Don’t look at me, apparently I’ve been worshipping genocidal megalomaniacs my entire life!”

Zevran says, almost darkly, “I traveled with her daughter during the Fifth Blight. You know this?” He asks me. I give a nod, and there is a slight twist of his lips, there and gone, before he continues. “There was an incident once, when the Hero of Ferelden retrieved her mother’s grimoire. Once she had deciphered it, Morrigan came to believe that Flemeth, your Asha’bellanar,” he says to Elden, “had survived countless centuries by possessing the bodies of her daughters.”

“She has another _living daughter?”_ She looks at me, and I can see a piece of her nearly fold in on itself at what she sees. “Don’t tell me. Please don’t tell me.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, my voice heavy with apology. “The parentage you were told I had in the dreams is as much of a lie as the Dirthamen who gave it to you.”

“It wasn’t just Dirthamen,” Fenris says bleakly.

“What?”

“He was only the first. Then came their god of the dead. It was was much less… tempered, in its approach.”

“It was the same for me,” Zevran says seriously. “And then their god of vengeance, a creature who wielded an all-consuming flame.”

Fenris’s nod is black and rigid. A muscle in his jaw is twitching rhythmically.

I file the information away, but at this moment it isn’t relevant. “Morrigan made a logical conclusion based on the information she had. But it wasn’t possession. It was a gift. A life spark of power and knowledge and longevity. When Mythal joined with that first host, and each one thereafter, they became one. One person, one mind, one entity. She is, and she _isn’t_ Mythal, just as she was and wasn’t the first Flemeth.”

Elden shakes her head, openly stricken. “Why didn’t she _help_ us?”

I look down at my hands. “It took her a very, very long time to pull herself together enough to seek a host-- a partner,” I correct at the look on Fenris’ face. “Thousands of years, I think, long after the Fall.” There’s a possibility that she was Andraste - literally - but it isn’t a theory I favor. “When she did, it was because she and the woman were consumed by the same need: righteous vengeance. She wasn’t Mythal the evanuris any longer. She wasn’t a powerful magelord or a ‘leader’ of the People. She has wandered the centuries waiting for her revenge. Plotting it, maneuvering for it, and for who knows what else. Shuffling around the pieces. It was her murder, in fact, that drove Fen’harel to the desperate act of creating the veil. It was the last of their crimes he could tolerate, and… well, to be frank, he has no temperance when it comes to losing someone he cares about. He unleashes all the fury of hell. In another life, maybe in this one, he would say three years from now that the only fitting punishment there could be for what they’d done to Mythal was an eternity of torment. And so far, that’s exactly what they’ve gotten. I don’t get the impression it was just a prison he put them in.”

Zevran is looking at me in a way I’ve never seen, as if he’s seeing something, some _thing_ completely new, or maybe just wholly unexpected. But there is no shock on his face, only a shrewd sort of watchfulness. Cake has stopped his grooming and is laying with his massive head flopped on Hawke’s foot, completely enveloping it and the surrounding earth in muscle and fur.

“So the others are still alive?” Elden asks, but it isn’t really a question.

I pause and look at her. “I have a theory about that, actually.” She waits. They all do. “The black city. The seat of the Blight.”

“You think they are connected?” Zevran guesses.

“I think it would make sense. Because I have a theory about what the Blight is, too. I think the Old Gods either were the elvhen pantheon, that Tevinter took them the same way they took the most powerful artifacts and skills of the elvhen and claimed them as their own, or that they pretended to be them in dreams to manipulate the people who were powerful enough to break into their prison. But of course it didn’t go according to plan.” A new thought occurs to me: “Or maybe it did. I don’t think they would have given up on escape so quickly, but if they had, they would’ve happily arranged to see the world razed in payment.” Maybe the evanuris wanted to be broken out. Maybe they wanted to use the Magisters as hosts. There’s no shortage of maybes.

“So that was what spurred the ancient Magisters to go after the city,” Hawke says. “That was how all of this started. When we fought Corypheus-- Sethius, he said that when the Magisters got there, the city was already blackened, and empty. But what does any of that have to do with these evanuris?”

“I don’t think he lied about that,” I say. “I don’t think there ever was a golden city at all. Fen’harel was a Dreamer of untold power. I think he created it, as black and uninviting as its contents, anchored it in a place that was impossible to reach, and trapped them and their Blight there forever.” Or the Blight had been held there and the evanuris elsewhere. Or the opposite. Or neither.

 _“Their_ Blight?”

I hesitate. “This is all only guesswork, mind. I think they caused the Blight. Lyrium is and isn’t a mineral. It’s life in a form you wouldn’t recognize, and I don’t know if the ancient elves did either, not at first. It’s blood. The blood of massive creatures called Titans.”

Hawke gives her head a shake like she’s seen a purple unicorn in spectacles and a pompadour and is certain she’s just had too much to drink, that it will go away if she can snap out of it.

“You know how, even in this world of limited magic, there are things like living trees?”

“Yeees,” Zevran says. As if I’ve just checked to make sure he knows the ocean is wet.

Oh, to have grown up in a world where things like talking trees are a given.

“Well that’s in a world that’s virtually cut off from magic. I think when the two were one, a lot of things probably looked different. Like there might have been different kinds of magic, or at least very different ways of relating to the Fade. Maybe the whole world was literally alive. Titans, they are living pieces of the earth, massive things, bigger than mountains. When dwarves talk about the stone, they’re talking, without realizing it, about the Titans.

“I think the Fade made the elvhen, and Titans made the dwarves, each with their own kind of magic. There’s still one alive, in fact. Maybe more. They supported whole sprawling cities literally inside their bodies. The red lyrium?” I say to Hawke and Fenris. “It’s lyrium corrupted by the Blight. How anyone could have worked with it to form that idol is absolutely beyond me, but hopefully it holds a clue, because a piece of Meredith’s sword ended up in some very bad hands, and now the stuff is going to be a _substantial_ problem in the days to come. It grows and spreads like wildfire when left _alone,_ and Sethius is farming the stuff as we speak.”

 _”Farming_ it?” Hawke snaps. I get a glimpse of the woman who held a city together, who took down a Qunari invasion and battled her way through whole units of experienced mages and templars. The woman Cassandra and Leliana had wanted - maybe still did want - as the head of the Inquisition.

I nod, utterly sober. “He’s holding a town in Orlais hostage and demanding slaves to keep it intact. When they get too worn out to work, they’re… fed to it,” I say, making no attempt to hide my unease about it. “I had people in the Inquisition keeping watch so I’d know when it began. If I acted preemptively, Sethius would have just started the operation somewhere we didn’t know about, _and_ started wondering how we had found out. I’m sure he would have assumed it was a spy, but….” I shift uncomfortably, suddenly aware of a grievous oversight. “I’ve been sloppy the way I’ve helped people. Once he heard the rumors of how aid was showing up before anyone even knew it was needed….”

“So you chose….” For a moment, Fenris is too furious to speak. “You chose a handful of people over _stopping the mining of red lyrium?”_

I blanch, and I thank god they can’t see it.

“What is the matter with you?” He shouts at me.

I lock my jaw. What’s wrong with me is that I’m not a strategist. I’m not a planner or a chess player or anything I should be for this role other than raw, unknown power and stolen magic.

“If you had any idea,” Elden says, surprising me. There is cold, bald warning in her eyes and tone, “of the people she’s helped or the people she _will_ help, of the weight she carries--”

Fenris shoves to his feet, his marks flaring to life. “I don’t give a damn about the weight she carries! If she knew all of this she should have immediately told someone who could have done something about it! You cannot fathom what one _sliver_ of red lyrium can do, the evil it can spread, let alone mines full of it!”

Zevran opens his mouth to redirect tempers, but I speak before he can. “There was another player to consider,” I say, the calm and quiet in my voice calling Fenris to settle, just a little. I pause, but the shouting doesn’t resume, so I carry on. “Fen’harel is awake. He woke one year ago, and has been watching over me in the Fade every night since I got here.”

This silence is very different from those before it.

“There are… this is more I don’t want to get into until we’re with the others, but I had to know if I was who he claimed. If the one clue I had about who or what I was - a dream after I passed out from stopping the Breach’s growth - was true, or something he planted. Until I _knew,_ anything I might have done could have cost much more than it saved. And probably would have.

“I’m not going to say I haven’t messed up since I got here. But Sethius and the Breach are only the most immediate dangers.” I look at Fenris, earnest and undefensive and sober. “They are not the biggest, and they are not the end game.

“When we get to Val Royeaux, people who _are_ qualified to fix this thing will be given all the information I have.” _Most of it,_ I amend silently. What I know about Fen’harel is still a secret I plan to guard closely. It’s as foolish as anything I’ve done yet, and infinitely more selfish, but it’s my decision to make. “A lot of things will be stopped before they get as bad as they would have. Other things will be prevented entirely. No, it isn’t ideal. But if you want to argue, have me tell you what your world would look like if I _weren’t_ here.

“There are a dozen things balancing on the points of needles, Fenris. More. And one single wrong move to any one of them will make all of this much worse, and take away the only advantage any of you have right now. We will act when we can, as we can, in every way we can, if our goal is to keep the world alive. I’m not here busting my ass for any other reason, because this body may be tens of thousands of years old and a born and bred native, but as far as my mind is concerned, I’m not even _from here._ And I refuse to be going through all of this bullshit just to see it screwed up because your probably-glowing ass has a--” I’m going to make a joke about a gasoline-soaked torch being stuck up there, but I don’t know the specifics of Denarius’s depravity. So instead I say, “Because you get _touchy.”_

I also stop myself from turning to Hawke and saying, ‘I can really see why you waited three years for him.’

Fenris is only half glowering me, and his marks have died down, but Zevran still cuts in this time.

“Now that that is cleared up,” he says brightly, “perhaps we can return to the subject of the imprisoned immortal beings who were powerful enough to be mistaken for gods by all of the other immortal, powerful beings. Yes? Very good. Now where did we leave off?” He pretends to think. “Ah, yes.” He looks at me. “I believe you were about to explain a theory that the would-be gods of the ancient world had something to do with the corruption of the blood of the Titans, thus leading to our present woes.”

Maybe I _will_ kiss him.

...Hahaha, right in front of Solas.

“The idea I favor, and there are a lot of them,” I begin, “is that the evanuris pissed off too many of the titans, or just the wrong one, and it corrupted its own blood. I don’t know if it was a death rattle to get revenge or an attempt to protect its people, whether it was a conscious thing or an unforeseen consequence. Maybe it was something meant to wipe out the Titans that went horribly wrong. But the darkspawn unerringly seek out the Old Gods that sleep in the earth.

“Elvhen could change their shape. I think they were pretty fond of doing so, in fact. But there was one form that only the gods were allowed to take.”

“...Dragons,” Zevran says, his voice bleak. “That is the form Flemeth took when we killed her. I have never heard of another mage capable of turning into a dragon. Although the ability to change shape is rare to begin with.”

Elden’s looks at him, eyes wide.

“We did not know she was a goddess,” Zevran defends. “If it is any consolation, she put up one of the most difficult fights any of us went through. And that includes the Archdemon. I… doubt it is any consolation. But we were obviously not as thorough as we sought to be.”

“No, you were,” I say. “Like Sethius, she just had a plan B. And knowing her, a C through Z, too.”

“The amulet,” Hawke says.

I nod.

To Zevran and Elden, she explains Flemmeth’s cost of aid for her family, and what happened when the ritual had been completed by Merrill at the mountain altar.

“Anyway, that’s my guess too,” I say to Zevran. “Dragons. Aside from that fight, It’s the form Mythal is usually associated with, and even in the ancient world I wouldn’t have a hard time believing those fuckers were some of the most powerful things around.

“There were eight evanuris. There were eight sleeping dragon-gods, too. And there was originally a ninth, with no corresponding body. Just like Fen’harel would have been a ninth evanuris if he had ever sought to claim the title. He had the power and influence of one of the gods, but he wasn’t one, not technically. He was both, and neither.”

“...I do not suppose I may still decline your generous offer to join the Inquisition?” Zevran asks conversationally. “Truthfully, being hunted ceaselessly by my former comrades can have its bright spots. It keeps me young and vigorous. Which is perhaps a little ironic, but I digress.”

“No,” I deadpan.

“As I was saying, it might also have to do with the Forgotten Ones. Maybe they’re the Old Gods. They opposed the very idea - the lie - of the evanuris, so for all I know they were on the right side of things, especially given how the stories that got passed down tended to warp who was ‘good’ and who was ‘bad.’ But they might have been controlling in their own way, and if that was the case, maybe Fen’harel just put them to sleep, intending to wake them up when he was around to keep them from getting out of hand.

“They’re associated with the Void, and I’ve wondered if that isn’t actually the territory of the Titans. The earth, underground. They had a magic the elvhen didn’t recognize, one they would have seen as a nothingness, a lack of personhood. That was one reason they waged war against the dwarves with such impunity. Mythal was the first to kill one of the Titans, and I don’t know if there were others, but I have a feeling their deaths and the climb of the evanuris’ powers, or those of the People as a whole, are tied together. If Mythal was the first to claim the power that allowed the elvhen to rise, I could certainly see her being depicted as the great mother.”

The air grows stifling as the realization that a single being killed a living mountain made of magic sinks in.

“But you don’t _know_ any of this,” Hawke says. “Because you don’t have your memories.”

I give a dip of my chin.

“Right. So… I don’t suppose you know when you might be getting those back?”

“That’s even more complicated than everything we’re dealing with now.”

“You said Fen’harel trapped the... evanuris in the Fade,” Elden says. She’s holding together, but there’s something unsteady in her scent. She’s shaking underneath.

“He did. That’s the other option. Maybe all he trapped was their spirits. Maybe the Old Gods are their physical bodies, and he convinced them to separate the two in preparation for his supposed final strike. Whether that really was against the Forgotten Ones….” I shrug a little in apology. “I don’t know anything about them after the fall of elvhenan, and to be honest, not much from before then, either. Like I said, we’re eyeball deep in slightly-educated guesses right now. But things were going wrong long before the fall. Arlathan, the crown jewel of the entire empire? It only stood for three thousand years. That’s nothing to the timetable of an immortal race. It’s a month. A week. Less, maybe.”

Hawke shakes her head. “Ok. I understand what you’re saying, and part of it makes sense. but the Blight doesn’t just kill people, it poisons _everything._ Darkspawn _ally_ themselves with the Old Gods, they wake them up and then serve them. And when they wipe everything out, they don’t stop with humans and elves. The Dwarves have been waging a nonstop war with them since the beginning.”

“Yes,” Zevran agrees. “We met a dwarven broodmother once, during the Blight. Not one of my more cherished memories.”

“Modern dwarves aren’t really dwarves as the Titans would recognize them,” I say. “I think ancient dwarves, the original ones, had sort of a hive mind with the Titans who made them. I think some of them _now_ have closer ties to the stone than others, but if a Titan, or a group of them, got pissed off enough that they instigated a genocide at the cost of their own blood and the creatures they’d made, the sentient pieces of themselves….”

“Then the ancient elves would have been their own undoing,” Hawke concludes quietly.

“Hm. Rather poetic,” Zevran remarks. His voice is serious, but he also sounds very much not disenchanted by the idea.

At his words, something erupts in Elden, something silent and invisible. I look in her direction just enough to see her in the edge of my vision and to focus on her with my other senses. It tells me what I need to know.

“Shut up and eat,” I say abruptly, my tone making it clear that discussion time is over. “We need to get moving. If we’re late to the meet after all this bullshit, I will burn this place to the ground myself.”

I get up and walk away to remove the option of anyone pressing the matter. Elden needs time. For the others it’s mostly just theory and lore. Even if it changes what they know of their religion, it isn’t shattering. For her, it’s everything her people have built themselves around. It’s her identity and her place in the world. You can’t tear down a person’s core framework all at once. Not if you want them to have a chance. Maybe it’s a little bit of a miracle that Bull survived being excommunicated by his people.

When I’m far away, I hear Zevran ask, “She was not serious, right? About the world-burning.”

Fenris growls “silently,” and Elden flicks a piece of food at the Antivan. It sounds like it hits him in the face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...This is why nothing happens in this story. No one ever shuts up. Because, you know, that’s totally not in my control.  >_>
> 
> Story change: Solas has been in love with her from day one, he probably just didn't realize it right away. Juicy story explanations to come, and it will be reflected in the rewrites.
> 
> The Hawke kissing the Arishok thing is a blatant reference to [this magnificent one-shot.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/277715/chapters/440253)
> 
> I have an [ask/prompt box on Tumblr](https://ahab2631.tumblr.com/ask) now. Abuse with impunity.
> 
> Also, I had to cut a scene that I didn’t want to kill, so now there’s [a scraps offshoot fic of AMV.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14562462/chapters/33649911)
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> 7/27/18: The Nua gang is now traveling in a cart to make her fade step require less concentration  
> 8/7/18: Cut the scene where Nua wanted to fill the abandoned mine with crafting materials. Too MarySue. Added mention of it with Josie in the dungeon, expanded a little on the dialogue near the end of the scene.


	28. Heart, Home, and Indigestion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Change: “Elden had the brilliant idea of using a cart to transport us. She assumed it would make my Steps easier if I could focus on bringing one large object along, instead of several small ones. She also assumed I would do it while riding a horse, rather than by pulling the cart myself. This is a source of amusement for too much of the morning, until I threaten to drop them all into the heart of a mountain. Elden is the only one who can tell for certain I'm not serious.”

We’re camped for the night, and everyone but Elden and I have gone down. I’m sitting on the ground, staring into the fire which, for the hell of it, is burning a sky blue, and maintaining a little glow so she can see what she’s doing. Something with herbs. Eventually I realize she’s making tea.

She holds a cup out, and I reach to take it with a question on my face. I love tea, but I didn’t pack any. Without Solas around, I’ve been taking a break from it.

“For your stomach,” she says with a nod to the worn little wooden cup. “You’ve hand your hand to it half the day,” she remarks mildly.

I hadn’t realized. I look down at it, and it does feel off. Like it’s being pulled at from behind.

“I think I’m hungry,” I say quizzically.

“You weren’t doing it when we were talking with Josephine, and you said you hadn’t eaten then in about two weeks.”

“Yeah, but F-- he said I was, er, conditioned,” I almost say “built” “to adapt however was needed. Maybe I was still in ‘go’ mode then so I just didn’t feel it.

Her back is to me and she’s rummaging around in her bag. “You can say his name.” She says that, but it’s more stoicism than anything. ‘This is my reality, I should adapt fast.’

She brings me something wrapped in fibrous green leaves and about the size of my palm. It smells earthy, almost musky, and whatever is inside is dense.

“Don’t eat the leaves,” she says. “They’re just a wrapper.”

“I’m not an idiot, thank you.”

“Yeah, well, apparently you didn’t have to be an idiot to think the rock-hard pit in that fruit was part of the edible bit, either.”

“I thought that was hilarious,” Zevran offers from his tent.

I look down, grumpy, and unfold the parcel. “It had a nice texture,” I say mulishly. Sort of crispy. Unfortunately it had also tasted abhorrent, so I’d been glad for the excuse to spit it out.

The bundle turns out to be sort of like a rice ball, shaped into a rectangle. It’s a rich light brown color and studded with herbs and fungus.

“We dry those and keep them on hand for when game is scarce. The mushrooms, I mean. I always try to keep some with me. They keep you from getting weak.”

Protein-packed fungus. Huh. “That’s pretty cool,” I say with a lopsided smile. When I bite into it, I don’t bother to hide the way my eyes roll back.

“I’m going to tell you a secret,” I say when I’ve savored and swallowed. “Most food here is almost disgusting. The balance is always wrong, there’s too much salt or weird aftertastes, whatever. This is the first thing outside of plain fruit or well-roasted meat that I have actually enjoyed.”

She looks down, and though she doesn’t blush visibly, I still know the blood has rushed to her face. “It’s supposed to be the closest we can get with modern plants to one of your recipes.”

As I look down at it, I wonder how close it is, or could be. If I memorize it well enough, maybe I could ask… I nearly groan. For a little while, I’d been able to let myself forget that I needed to speak with Fen’harel before I reunite with the others. I wonder how patient he’ll be with my disappearance this time.

Then again, he’s a well of secrets and lies, so if he doesn’t like it, he can cram it.

As if on queue, Elden clears her throat quietly and asks, “Are you sleeping tonight?”

“Toward morning,” I say, not hiding my feeling on the matter. “I’ll take first watch, but I want the rest of the night down.”

She nods, her back to me again. “I’ll take second. I’ll wake up the Antivan for the third.”

“The Antivan will take coffee, then, should you have any,” he says.

“You could have the decency to pretend you’re already sleeping,” Elden grouses.

“And deceive my comrades in arms? My dearest, lovely woman, I am insulted. I may however have an idea of how you might best apologize.” He’s like a cat, focusing on the person who wants the least to do with him.

“I’ll give you something to be insulted about,” Elden mutters to herself.

 

* * * * *

 

His voice is in my head before I’m even fully “awake” in the Fade:

[Are you safe?] It isn’t panicked, but there’s a tightness that confuses me. I don’t understand why.

He trots up, roughly the size of an elephant, and _shoves_ his nose into me, prodding and snuffling. He’s indulging himself; he knows I’m fine. And indulging himself holds off the fact that worry is melting into anger.

“I won’t do it again,” I say. I sound like a defensive teenager. “...I think.”

A very sincere growl rolls deep in his chest. [You will pardon me if I do not hold my breath,] he rumbles.

I laugh, not enough to come out as a proper sound, but it’s still there.

“I assumed Solas would have told you I was alright.”

He nudges his muzzle indelicately under my arm, forcing it away from my side as he continues his needless inspection. It almost tickles, so I try to pull away, but then he’s behind me, his side against my back, barring me from moving. He’s shrunk though, so his spine stops around my shoulder blades.

“What are you even doing?” I laugh.

He ignores my question to say, [Ah, yes, your message. That you were ‘ok’ and ‘to calm the fuck down.’] Hearing him swear is almost surreal, moreso because of the fact that it’s not ill-suited. His tongue is familiar with curses.

My cheeks heat. “I, uh, didn’t exactly tailor it for you. Sorry.”

[I doubt that. Where are you?]

I could not answer him, because it’s an insanely hypocritical thing to ask and we both know it. But if I don’t, Solas will just tell him tomorrow, because he’s a kissass. Or fanatically loyal. Either way.

Churlishly, I say, “On the road from Haven to meet up with the others before the Chantry thing in Kirk-- er, Val Royeaux. Sorry, I’m tired as hell. If you’ll excuse me.”

A couch abruptly manifests at my side, boxy and covered in a simple, pale turquoise fabric. I half fall onto it, sitting sideways with my back against a tall armrest. Fen’harel takes a seat on the forest floor next to me, shrunk again so our eyes are at the same level.

[You will make it in time?]

I give him an arch look. “We’ll meet up with the main party early tomorrow. Provided everyone still feels ok in the morning,” I add with a frown. “I’ve been watching them and they seem fine, but I don’t know. Hawke is a mage and Fenris has functional lyrium branded into his skin, but still.”

[You are not alone?]

“I’m never alone so long as I carry you in my heart,” I sop.

We stare at one another.

“Ugh, fine, no,” I answer, sinking down so my head is laying on top of the armrest. “You’ll have heard of the Champion of Kirkwall, I assume. That’s Hawke. Fenris is her companion and, I don’t know, husband basically? Zevran is there too, he’s one of the people who stopped the last Blight.”

He gives a silent acknowledgement of the information, and I get a whiff of the fact that he has read about Hawke and Fenris, and finds the lyrium markings interesting in a scholarly way. Because of course he does. [I cannot imagine a mortal will not eventually tire of the spell if used constantly as you are, but any incompatibilities should present themselves clearly and early on. I would assume nausea, excessive tiredness, or headaches most likely.]

“Look who’s suddenly the expert on the magic he wasn’t even sure would work,” I mutter.

Gently, a companionable silence settles over us. Eventually he pads forward enough to lay his head on my stomach. His eyes close.

He missed me. Very much.

I wonder exactly how alone he is during his days, and a hard, dense little knot forms in my chest. I think it’s instinct as an elvhen, this feeling that the very idea of one of us being isolated is wrong on a fundamental level. The way you would stop and help a child you didn’t know if they were alone and injured. Absently, my fingernails stroke through the fur on his head, from down between his eyes, back nearly to his ears. I watch the stars, until his contentment becomes so full and real that I can do nothing but close my eyes and let myself fall in.

Eventually, I remember my purpose for coming here, and reluctantly, shift to sit up. He watches me closely, my tension more or less his own.

“I need to know… Daern’thal. Where is he?”

[Dead.]

A breath whooshes out of me and my heart thumps fit to shake my ribcage. I can’t possibly be that lucky. “How certain are you?”

[Utterly.] He says it with the finality of a verdict come down from a true god.

Crushing relief explodes from me, wavering like a person on the brink of tears. My hands go to my mouth.

He realizes I was terrified over this.

[Must you take everything on alone?]

I laugh wetly. Of all people to say something like that.

He huffs a sigh out through his muzzle and says, [Close your eyes, Little One.]

I do. There is a pause, the sound of movement, and then fingertips brush my knee, hesitant.

My exhale trembles. I lean forward, reaching out to him. My hands find broad, strong shoulders and slip around them. His hair is long again tonight, but soft and thick and smooth. I let myself slide off the couch and into him. One of his hands goes to the small of my back, the other between my shoulderblades. We tuck our faces against one another’s necks and just hold on. Occasionally, he’ll murmur to me in elvhen, small comforts. His hand will slide up and down my back.

Then something begins to change. The innocent touches don’t feel so innocent. The closeness invites something more than comfort.

He pulls back and tells me, [Open your eyes.]

I hesitate, because what is he doing? But when I open them, I find blackness, a total absence of light. It’s true, I can’t see him, but something about knowing he is a foot away while my eyes are open feels more alive. Electric.

I move my hands to his neck and slide them upward until I’m cupping his face. He has a defined jaw. My thumbs stroke over high, prominent cheekbones. I want more. I want to feel his brow, to run my fingers over feather-soft lashes, to feel the shape of his nose, his lips, his chin. But I can’t; I won’t risk losing this much.

Again hesitant, as if afraid I will burn him, the fingertips of one hand find their way to my cheek. His other hand remains at the small of my back, holding me close. He’s sitting on his feet, and I can’t entirely recall doing it, but I’m straddling his legs. There is no distance between us.

His fingers slip down toward my neck, and his thumb takes their place over my cheekbone. Everywhere they touch is tingling.

Abruptly and with no warning, something in the air _snaps,_ and he surges forward, his mouth hard and demanding on mine.

One of his hands is in my hair, which is suddenly long enough for him to grip. His other arm wraps around my back and holds me there with all the strength of diamond. I am burning, and I can’t tell if it’s coming from me or him and I don’t care.

I shouldn’t… this shouldn’t be happening. But why? The question wafts in the periphery of my mind, in and out, but I can’t remember the answer, because I am millions of nerve endings scorching with the white pain of longing and urgency.

Small sounds are coming from me, ragged breaths from us both, and he lets out a little growl as he nips my earlobe, then pulls it into his mouth, bites it again, then sucks at it. My back arches against him. He stands and my legs wrap around him hungrily. Two steps, and he lays me down on something soft - a bed - and lowers himself over me.

This is… familiar. This is a worn path, like stone carved out by water over hundreds of thousands of years.

_I want this. I have hungered for it for thousands of years, tended to the small flame deep within myself, unable to bear the thought of extinguishing it._

His mouth, soft lips, agile tongue, demanding teeth, all make their way up edge of my ear until, far too quickly, I am quavering under him, hands clutching at his bare arms like he’s all that’s keeping me from falling over a cliff. I’ve never felt this before, it isn’t like a touch against any other part of my skin would be.

_You surprised me, you defied me and stood against me as my equal. You made me fight for every millimeter and I wanted you so much it almost became a dark thing. Over the ages, wars and schemes and our shifting, unchanging people playing their games, I hungered for you. To find you here, now, with everything else gone…._

His hands rake up my sides, shifting the shirt and exposing my skin. One finds its way underneath effortlessly to slide up my stomach and between my breasts, then gently wrap around my throat as his mouth returns to mine, rough and hard and frenzied. He runs his hand back down the same path, fingers pressing into my skin as it goes, not stopping until it finds the top of my pants. His fingers slide under the waist and hook it, pulling at them, but not tearing them off, not yet.

_I hurt._

He urges my legs wider apart and pushes his intensely hard cock into me, through his clothing and mine--

_I am so alone._

\--and just that pressure, muted though it is, elicits a deep moan from me and a ragged sound from him.

_I ache._

_A flash of anger-- No, I do not feel these things. I am past them. There is too much at stake--_

_But you appeared. You were her, and I need… I need._

He growls as if angry and his hands dig into me, the sound rumbling against my shoulder through sharp teeth as he bites down.

_It is not too late. I can claim you. Mark you._

_You would give yourself to me readily, willingly._

Understanding snaps into place and I gasp against into his mouth. My hands go to his chest and push him up, breaking the kiss.

Those thoughts, the feelings… they weren’t me. They were him.

The only sound is our gasping breaths. His weight is still between my legs. I look up to where I know his eyes are, and I feel him looking back at me. I feel like a serrated blade has been set on an axle and spun through me.

In the instant before I speak, he does. “I… this-- I apologize, vhenan, I must go.” And then I am alone on a bed in the utter dark.

...Did he just...?

 

* * * * *

 

I’m so distracted the next morning that we spend a half hour walking.

Fen’harel knew me. _This_ me, but in the past. Which means I go back again. Except Solas anchored me here and now so I couldn’t be pulled away a second time. But if that worked, it should mean that mean Fen’harel would have no memory of me from Elvhenan. Unless time wasn’t a single strand, but infinite strands, and each change didn’t alter one so much as create another. I do not have a degree in Theoretical Physics. This is above my paygrade.

Truth told me “A lock was placed that should not have been.” “Something was changed that should not have been.” “You are shut away from something.”

I don’t tend to believe in coincidence, which would mean that whoever this dickhole puppetmaster is - the one who wants to see Fen’harel suffer horribly and then die - they have a vested interest in me returning to the distant past.

Something else bothers me, too, dogs me.

Last night, I had gripped someone as hard as I could, and he had not broken. I had clung tightly, pushed and pulled and maybe scratched without fear he would be hurt.

I knew what it felt like to not have to hold back now.

 

* * * * *

 

When we get close the the Inquisition party - close by my standards - I abandon the cart. The jokes will already be bad enough without them seeing it.

Our reunion is largely uneventful, except for three things.

The moment Varric catches sight of Hawke, within a single second, his emotions shift from surprise to joy, to fear, to disappointment and resentment toward me.

 _”Damnit, Trouble,”_ he curses under his breath.

Cole tells him, “Free bird, always free, but fettered, flitting. She won’t let them use her again. She will protect her for you.”

“Er… thanks, Kid. That… actually does make me feel better.”

The second one is Cullen.

Cullen hugs me. He pulls me to himself and he hugs me, and he murmurs, “We’re all glad you’re safe.” When my wide eyes meet his, pink creeps up his neck.

Third is The Iron Bull. Before Cullen has really stepped back, Bull has me against his barn-sized chest, my feet dangling in the air.

“Boss,” he says, and his voice is so warm and so happy, honey and gravel the the slick water in a creek. He’s holding me to him in a crushing hug, arms all the way around me holding nothing back. He presses the side of his face to mine so his lips rest over my ear, and he whispers, like it’s something that needs to be private, “Welcome back.”

I feel flushed when he sets me down.

 

* * * * *

 

Everyone but Solas has greeted me. I give him a cursory look up and down. "I see your pants are still impractically and inappropriately tight.”

For some reason, some of the others seem to find this funny.

 

* * * * *  


The first words out of my mouth once greetings and introductions are done with (Varric introduces Solas, and Hawke looks stricken. _“Chuckles?_ Varric how could you?”), because they have to be, are, “I’m not going to get into much until we get to Val Royeaux. We'll talk after the meet.”

Fenris glowers at me. Or, well, looks at me with minor annoyance, I guess. He just has resting glower face. I glower right back. I know why he’s impatient, but we’re not going to solve the red lyrium crisis from the road, it can wait a couple days.

“Aw, we’re making friends already,” Varric says brightly.

For but a fleeting moment, Fenris and I have a common enemy.

There are no extra horses, so some people pair up.

“I will ride with Leliana, shall I?” Zevran offers.

“No you will not," she replies immediately.

“But we have not seen one another for ages! We should catch up.”

“We can catch up with an appropriate distance between us, thank you.”

He “tsks” sadly. “I am crushed, my old friend.”

Zevran ends up riding with the Hero, of all people. Cole gives his horse to Hawke and Fenris, since he doesn’t tire like the others do, and Solas offers up his space for Elden, which she accepts readily. It sets a feeling under my skin not unlike sliding along old wood and coming away with hundreds of hair-fine splinters.

Bull insists I ride with him. Which is of course ridiculous, but he’s acting so strangely that I think maybe he needs to talk, so I go along with it.

Happily, Roderick seems to want nothing to do with me beyond trying to kill me with his eyeballs. I don’t know how much of his restraint might have to do with the fact that seems to have picked up a nanny: Kerry, the templar friend of Cullen’s who first showed me what anti-mage abilities felt like.

Elden is kind enough to fill everyone in on the elf situation in Haven as we travel.

 

* * * * *

 

For a long time, we ride in silence. Bull has both hands on the reins, which is odd, because it doesn’t take two hands to hold reins. Technically, it doesn’t take any hands to hold them, because these are basically trail horses, and since his mountain-sized steed isn’t in front, it’s pretty much nature’s auto-pilot. But his hands stay there, arms nestled against my sides, his chest pressed against my back, steady heartbeat thudding against my shoulder.

Eventually I let my head tip back and against him, and it feels so good I close my eyes. He smells gratified and relieved.

Now I get why he did this. Smart man; it has been so long since I could just exist like this, be passive.

Eventually, he quietly guesses, “You didn’t get great news.”

After a moment, I surround us with a barrier against sound. But for Solas, we'd be fine talking as long as we kept our voices down.

“I’d say it’s more that I got a lot more than I planned on,” I murmur. Guilt hits me. I shouldn’t be letting him touch me like this without telling him what I am first. It will change things. The reminder brings a dull wash of pain.

After a moment, he puts one of his big hands on the center of my chest above my breasts and presses his palm down. I look at it in confusion.

“Just relax,” he rumbles. “Give it a minute.”

When I do, when I let go of the confusion and sense of strangeness, I start to feel the strangest sense of relief. Then more, as if he has pressed open a seal that has been holding back the worst of my pain. I gasp and my hand goes to his, gripping his thumb tightly. My breath is hitched and uneven.

I turn my head to the side and tilt it up, seeking contact - he obliges by lowering his head until my nose finds the crook of his neck, and we stay there like that, in a simple sort of embrace.

Eventually I stop having to gasp for air, and the sharpest edges ease away, though the pain is all still there.

“Thank you,” I whisper. I don’t want the hurt, of course I don’t. But he’s reminded me of what happens if you choose to deal with your problems by pushing them down. I had this much pain in me and I hadn’t really been feeling it. Too much of that, with everything that’s coming and who I have to be, would cripple me in ways I couldn’t afford. That the others couldn’t afford, either.

He puts his nose in my hair. He rumbles, words muffled against my scalp, “You don’t have to take so much on alone, Boss. Not anymore.” He presses a surprisingly tender kiss to the soft place where my neck meets my shoulder, and we ride on in silence. His hand drops from my chest, arm going around my middle and staying there.

 

* * * * *

 

I keep telling myself I’m being overly sensitive. We’ve been riding for hours, and they’re so innocent, and they’re happening so far apart. And even Bull is just a person sometimes. _Eventually_ he has to relax, however briefly, and when people relax, they don’t pay attention like they normally would.

Then I remember that’s stupid, because it’s The Iron fucking Bull.

Once, it’s the way he shifts his legs so they brush up against mine just barely, just so. Another time, he suddenly finds his hold on the reins insufficient, and once he has adjusted to his liking, he’s basically left hugging me sans only his forearms and hands. It has gone on like this all fucking day.

When air puffs from his nose in what seems like a perfectly natural deep breath and just _happens_ to caress the back of my neck and the crook behind an ear - both unfairly sensitive places with lines that go straight to my crotch - I ask him in an undertone, “What are you doing?”

“Hm?”

After a beat, I reach back, wrap a hand around one of his horns, and pull his head down to my eye level. My expression is unamused. So is my voice. “What are you doing.”

He gives a jerk of his head to break free. I am unmoved.

“Would you… do you mind?” He grouses.

“I mind very much, and I’ll thank you to answer my question.”

He gives me an assessing look. “...You sure you want to know?”

“I asked, so yes.”

He looks at me another second, then shrugs and says, “I warned you.”

He tilts his hips forward enough for me to really, truly feel… well.

_Well._

I go white and flushed in the same instant, and he pulls his head easily free. And doesn’t restore the space between his groin and my back. He puts a hand over the lower part of my belly and splays his fingers. Fluidly, he leans down and puts his lips next to my ear.

“I can hear your heart this close, you know.” He’s done something to his voice that has me sucking in a quiet breath.

Just as quietly, I say, “There are a lot of reasons for a person’s heart to speed up, asshole. Like nerves. Or mortification.”

We have caught Solas’ attention. From a few horses ahead, I see his head turn just slightly in our direction, and stay that way.

Bull’s chest rumbles, and his voice is rough. “Either you forgot who you’re talking to because you’re…” he gives a press of his hand, pushing our hips still closer together, _“distracted,_ or you forgot that I have a pretty good sense of smell. Not much compared to yours, sure, but enough to tell you how _incredible_ you smell right now.” He basically growls out the last part, and I feel suddenly feverish.

“...You don’t--” My voice is hoarse. I clear my throat and try again. “You’re Qunari. You don’t have sex with your friends.”

“No. But you’re not Qunari.”

“What if I want to convert?”

His chest sends vibrations through mine again.

“I can’t swear you in, and you’re not going to find anyone who can any time soon.”

Something shifts in me, a strange new physical sensation. Sort of like an octopus is worming its way around in my abdomen, except not disgusting or horrifying.

“You’re not this forward,” I argue.

He laughs so hard I feel it in his stomach. And it makes his dick move against my back, which makes my groin clench, a quaver go through my belly, and the incredibly, _deliciously_ musky smell coming off of him stronger.

“I’m Ben-Hassrath, Boss. I’m whatever I want to be. Right now, for instance. This is ‘I’ve missed you, it’s kept me up nights and almost driven me, _me,’”_ he grinds out, “‘to distraction, and a slow seduction is all well and good, but frankly’,” his voice lowers considerably, _“‘fuck_ that.’”

A slow….

No.

 _No._ I went to him because he was the one person I didn’t have to worry about this with. He knew what I wanted and what I didn’t. He--

….Oh.

_Fuck._

I put the sound barrier back up. “...When did you get the order?” My voice is emotionless.

He’s still and quiet. But then he just sighs, long and tight. He’s not going to play dumb, at least. That’s something. Or part of the game. Suddenly I want to drop down off of the horse and get as much distance between us as I can.

He doesn’t sound happy when he says, “Back in the Hinterlands, when we were split up.”

That long ago.

After a silence, he adds, his voice serious, “You should know something, though. It wasn’t the reason why. It was the permission.” I know from his tone he’s not making an excuse, and I know from his scent that he’s telling me the truth, at least as far as he knows it.

After another silence, I pull my leg up, turn it, and slip out of the saddle to walk well behind the rest of the group. He doesn’t do anything to stop me. Because he’s not stupid. But he’s angry. The sort of anger that comes from hurt, from the self-recrimination of knowing you screwed up.

After a while, Cullen turns his horse around and urges it back to meet me.

“Are you alright?” He asks. “You’re welcome to ride with me. I know you don’t need to, but….”

I can’t make myself say anything. I’m quiet for so long it’s rude. I’m quiet for so long it seems like a dismissal, but I can’t make any words come out.

“...Right,” he says to himself. Then to me, as he leans forward in preparation to spur his horse on, “If you--”

“Don’t,” I say. At first I’m not sure if he can even hear me. “Stay, please. I just….” Pain tugs at my face. So does weariness. I just shake my head.

After a moment of quiet, he slips out of his saddle, puts his horse’s reins over its head so he can keep hold of them, and walks next to me in companionable silence.

At some point, my hand finds its way into his.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let’s have a little nerdchat about the word “vhenan.”
> 
> Similar to “Kadan,” its translation is not simple or direct - it is a word for which there is no real counterpart in English. We simplify them to mean “my heart” or “my love,” and slap a romantic connotation onto them, but actually they’re more complex than that, touchingly so.
> 
> Elvhen is a language made up of smooshed-together words, like German; Vhenan isn’t a word, it’s a compound word: vhen’an.
> 
>  **Vhen** = The figurative heart, the emotional concept of home, or a race/people, e.g. “Elvhen” translates literally to “Our People,” or “Hunvhen” refers to the Qunari people.  
>  **-an** = a suffix indicating place or location
> 
> Slippery as the Elvhen language is, there’s no literal translation of “vhenan,” but it could mean:  
> My heart/My home  
> Home of my heart/My heart’s home  
> Place where my heart lives  
> Location of my heart
> 
> On and on into a hundred variations because Elvhen is a d*ck. I like tom imagine, though, that like a lot of our own attempts to express love, it has taken on deeper meanings over time, and refers to the place where one's heart and soul rest, a connection too deep and profound for any word but, because it's elvhen and so much of it is intent, it can come close.
> 
> Modern-day use aside, “vhenan” speaks of a feeling one person has for another, free of connotation, romantic or otherwise.
> 
> So hey, maybe he was saying “I love you” before he ran away. Maybe he was “just” saying “I super srs care about you and you are super-super srs important to me kthxbai *flees*”
> 
> Most of my information was taken from FenxShiral’s Project Elvhen (aka “The Bible of Elvhen”) and the DA Wiki


	29. They Make People Like You

We stop early for the night since there’s no point in hurrying now that I’m here.

(“I will not allow that witch to use her magic on me!” -Roderick  
“Then by all means, Chancellor, carry on by yourself. Or get left behind. I’m certain the other remaining members of the Chantry in Val Royeaux will find some way to limp along without you, however arduous.” -Cullen)

Once camp is set up, we sit around the fire in a large, misshapen circle. Roderick, and by consequence Kerry, are the only exceptions; Elden is uncomfortable so close to so many, but even she is here. We’re finishing off the last of our meal - my stomach has been feeling strange again, and unless I accidentally swallowed a razor blade, I can’t figure out what other than hunger should be upsetting it - and talking in the rich golden air of twilight. Bull has been watching me almost constantly, but hasn’t been obvious about it.

Leliana gives a humorless, self-deprecating little chuckle. “I cannot believe I still manage to worry that you won’t be able to create some miracle or another. We received word that you were in Haven and planned to catch up to us on the road, but….” She makes a noise in her throat. “I won’t waste anyone’s time asking how.”

“I _told_ you,” Cole says.

Thom’s - I refuse to call him Blackwall - eyes dart from Cole, back to the rest of us. “I don’t see how that could be a waste of time,” he objects. He sounds a little stunned.

“We did warn you, Hero,” Varric says with some sympathy.

“Yes, you did. But hearing about it and seeing it….” To me, he asks, tipping his head toward Bull, “Did you really beat him in an arm wrestling match, too?”

“Yeah,” Bull says flatly. He managed to sit next to me. “Because I lied about a tiny girl whose waist is as big around as my bicep beating me in a test of strength.”

I elbow Bull hard in the side and he grunts and puts a hand to it. “Easy,” he growls quietly.

“Blackwall” is watching this, eyebrows halfway up his forehead.

I hum dismissively. “It must just be hard to hold all this energy in when I’m so _tiny.”_

“There are better ways to deal with that, you know.” he replies.

“I can provide several suggestions, if you wish,” Zevran adds, all silk.

I mutter something under my breath about the two of them getting a room, and only get pissed when the idea makes me unexpectedly possessive.

 

* * * * *

 

Roderick has been glaring daggers from forty feet away for no less than half an hour, under the auspices of reading by the light of a lantern.

I lean in to Cassandra, who sits at my right, and ask in an undertone, “Did you guys know he’s gay?”

Cullen snorts. “Roderick? He is the polar opposite.”

“Uhhh, no. No he’s definitely gay.”

“Did you hit your head?” Varric asks.

I’m baffled, until I realize I must be using the wrong word. “He likes other men,” I clarify. “Personally. You know... _personally.”_

That stops them up short. Blackwall looks away and clears his throat, Cullen puts his face in his hand, Leliana narrows her eyes and turns her head just enough to look back at him from the corners of her eyes. Bull does the same and then says, “Huh.” Cassandra and Varric are blinking at me, and Hawke and the others could care less. Except Zevran. Zevran seems... intrigued.

“No,” Varric muses, “you know, that actually kind of make sense.”

”How does that make _any_ sense?” Cassandra asks.

“No one’s that angry _and_ mean _and_ self-righteous unless they secretly hate themselves.”

“More interestingly, how did _you_ know?” Bull asks me. I can’t figure out why he’s pretending everything is fine between us. I assume for the sake of the group as a whole.

I shrug. “He smells like it.”

“He… smells like it.”

I nod. “Gay, straigh-- er, homosexual or straight, dominant, sick or healthy, shy, tired, relative age…. I can smell it.”

Blackwall’s face is beginning to redden. To himself, he mutters, “Maker, what did I sign up for?”

Bull’s looking at me, intensity buried deep in his eye, like he knows something or wants to ask something. Were I a betting woman, I’d say he’s going to mysteriously pop up if I’m alone for even a second tonight.

“What?” Varric asks the Qunari. “Nothing about how you could really use her in the Qun?

Solas scoffs. Elden is quietly disgusted to the point of nausea.

“Nah. She’s gotten the speech, and I’m not a recruiter. She already thinks like one of us. Give it time.”

I narrow my eyes at him. He knows I do, I know he knows, but he pretends he doesn’t. Is he trying to bait me?

“As she has a will of her own and is capable of independent thought,” Solas says, arch, “I highly doubt that.”

Bull shrugs. “The truth is the truth whether you believe in it or not.”

“...On that, at least, we can agree.”

“Well Maker have mercy,” Varric effuses, “mark this day on the calendar.”

“Not that this isn’t lovely,” Cullen interrupts, “but can we get to why we needed all the special arrangements for a simple meeting of clerics? We’re happy to serve how best we may, but Leliana and I are are needed in Haven. We left far too much for Josephine to handle alone.”

“Sure,” I deadpan, picking at one of my nails. “You needed a fucking vacation.”

This is met with silence.

“Oh my god, I’m joking,” I laugh. “Seriously though,” I say to Cullen, “you and I are going to have a chat about your eating habits. But not in front of the kids. They shouldn’t see mom and dad fighting.” He looks chagrined even as he blushes - he's having a hard time with my outfit, as is the Hero - and _lord_ it is too fun to make him do that. “And have you written to your sister? If you haven’t, I’m going to throw a noblewoman at you for every hour you put it off.”

He mutters something ungracious under his breath.

Varric stage whispers, “I’ll get you some paper in the morning.”

The banter dies and one by one, every set of eyes turns to me, waiting.

“Who brought booze?” I ask.

Solas is immediately, acutely alarmed.

Bull tosses a flask and I catch it without turning.

“...Three points,” I say begrudgingly.

“Might I suggest we retain clear heads until after we have finished?” Solas says.

“Only if you want to take a couple of my suggestions, too,” I say with a flat smile. I tip back the flask and start to take a generous swig, until something unnervingly close to panic wafts over from Solas. It’s so sharp, so urgent that it makes me sputter and cough.

Bull holds a hand out for the flask. “Maraas-Lok. Most southerners can’t handle it, Boss, don’t worry.” Under his breath, too quiet for anyone else to hear, he adds, “But way to be a girl.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “How about I be a girl and break one of your ribs?”

“You got bloodthirsty while you were away,” he says with obvious approval.

I stare him right in the eye as I down the entire flask in one go, close it tightly, and hold it out to him. I don’t so much as clear my throat.

I’m fairly certain he filled the flask with rubbing alcohol and degreaser by mistake.

“Fuck,” he laughs. “I take it all back. That’ll give you more chest hair than the new guy! ...You’re gonna want to drink a lot of water, though. I mean a _lot_ of water, or even you’ll be feeling that in the morning.”

“Prophet,” Solas says urgently, “may I have a word with you?”

“No,” I say, blithe. Goddamned nanny. “I have many a vague, disembodied feeling that I’ve probably had liquor before. I’ll survive.”

He prods at me so much that I look over and snap, “Knock it off.”

There is a tiny muscle tick in his jaw.

Bull, Leliana, and Zevran are all watching this with interest.

It’s quiet for a while then, and I sober as I stare at the fire. My mood is contagious; Cullen asked to know, and they can feel it coming.

“Lord Seeker Lucius is a greater Envy demon,” I say.

The silence this time stretches, worse with each moment, like the halting pull of elastic.

“That…. _How?”_ Cassandra manages, obviously pained. “I know the Lord Seeker, he would never allow a demon into himself. He would sooner die.”

“He didn’t,” I say, grim. I’m still looking at the flames to the exclusion of everything else. “The Seekers refused to be imbued with red lyrium--”

 _“Imbued with--?”_ Cullen demands

I hold up a hand, stopping him, and glancing carefully in the direction of Roderick’s tent. His snores are undisturbed. To Cullen, I say, “We have a lot to cover. We’re not there yet. Urgent as I know that seems, we’re not there yet.”

I laugh, quiet and unamused, at the knowledge that there are enough other things _worse_ than the growth and imbibing of red lyrium to bump it down from the top of any list.

“Some among the templar order are already being corrupted by it. It is taken, similar to normal lyrium, but its effects on the body and mind are vastly different. It turns one man into ten, and those are the weakest ones. But it eats away at their sanity. They get powerful, and once their minds are gone, nothing is left but the will of Sethius. I don’t know how he’s got such control over the nature of red lyrium. I don’t know how he’s making pacts with so many ancient demons. I’d really like to, but right now we have more urgent things to worry about.

“Unlike the Templars, The order of Seekers flat-out refused the change in diet. So Lucius allowed Envy to take his form and lead the Templar Order, while he tried to undo the Seekers.”

I pause, giving them just a moment to digest before going on. “Envy will be in Val Royeaux. It'll interrupt the proceedings, one of its men will punch a Chantry Mother in the head, and then it'll declare the city no longer worthy of Templar protection. The plan is to goad it into showing itself then and there, with the help of any pertinent spells,” I nod in Solas’ direction, “and god do I hope there are some. This demon, though… it’s incredibly powerful. We needed to be able to take it down, but--”

“How long has your stomach been bothering you?” Bull asks.

I realize my hand is resting over it again, subtly massaging it. “Excuse me?” Did he really just interrupt me over my _stomach?_

“Three days,” Elden says, grim.

I look at her, bewildered. “Can we get back to the thing, please? Jesus.” No one objects, so with a darkly unbelieving shake of my head, I go on.

“We can’t take an army to Val Royeaux. What we can take is a large, and exceptionally deadly retinue. Every one of you is a slice of an army unto yourselves. The people we sent ahead to blend in with the public will be responsible for clearing everyone from the square before things go bad.

“Once we down Envy….” I trail off. The chain of thought just stopped, then slipped away. “Uh…. Oh! Right. Right. The hope is that I can get the Templar Order to join us on the spot, then head immediately to Redcliffe to get the mages, because if we don’t, Sethius will claim whoever we fail to recruit as part of his army. That’s why I had you look for Samson, Cullen. Since we couldn’t find him, I assume it’s too late and he’s already joined ranks. He’ll be Sethius’s General.

“Redcliffe will have its own set of fun complications, but not all of you will have to deal with them; Cassandra, when we leave you’ll take a party and ride hard for Caer Oswin. The real Lucius, the human one, is likely already a loyal follower of the tenets of The Order of Fiery Promise.”

“Those fanatic lunatics?” She asks, disbelieving. “They were supposed to have been wiped out.”

“I’m sorry,” Hawke interrupts, “who? I’ve known my fair share of fanatics and lunatics, and fanatic lunatics, and several lunatic fanatics, but I’ve never heard of The Order of Fiery Promise. Not a very encouraging name.”

“An old sect,” Leliana explains, “a fragment of the Templar order that predates the official formation of the Chantry. They believed the world was meant to burn in holy fire until nothing was left, and that from the destruction would come paradise.”

I glance at Solas. He’s looking back, but I can’t read his expression.

My tongue feels odd.

“They were wiped out twice,” I say to Cassandra, “yes. But you can’t kill an idea, they pop back up like weeds.

“At Caer Oswin, you’ll save what’s left of the Seekers. At this early juncture, god willing, that will be most or all of them. At the very least, you’ll be there in plenty of time to make sure Daniel is safe and uncorrupted.”

She stiffens.

“That wasn’t the case in the world I... knew.” I still never know how to put that. “...But you did make it in time to tell him goodbye.”

God in heaven, suddenly it’s hot. I grip below the neck of my shirt between two fingers and use it to fan myself. “Do you have some water?” I ask Cassandra. Before she can reach down and pick it up, Bull is casually holding a skin out for me. I take it from him with a glower and, to my surprise, drain the entire thing.

“Right… uh…. Lucius. He’s going to have a lot to tell you, Cassandra. They’re things that are going to be hard to hear. Take your time after, return to Haven or go somewhere else if you need to. Read the book. Whether you release the information or keep it to yourself and burn the book, I leave up to you. Your conscience is formidable. I trust it implicitly.

“It doesn’t matter who comes with me to Redcliffe, and I don’t think I’ll have much preference either way, so you can take whoever you like with you. You’ll want Varric or Elden, though, unless you think you’ll feel like kicking down about a dozen doors.” Hawke could pick locks with the rest of them, but I wasn't letting her out of my sight. Or.... "Come to think of it, just take Elden. I need Varric for something." Namely, for knowing Hawke wasn't being coerced by anyone into doing something stupid. Like walking into the Fade and sacrificing herself so everyone else could get back out. Or becoming Inquisitor. Or, I don't know, babysitting Roderick for an afternoon.

“And what fresh hell awaits in Redcliffe?” Hawke asks brightly. She is reclined against a slumbering Cake.

“One I’d rather not talk about,” I say, closing the subject.

“...You have the same sense of fun as the Hero of Ferelden,” Zevran remarks.

I grunt. “Maybe we’ll get together for tea some time.”

“...Do you know where she is?” Leliana asks. The hope she tucks away in the words is painful.

My hand flies to my stomach and my face contorts and the strangest sense in my gut, like someone has tied a rope around my insides and _yanked_ backwards. “Woof,” I say under my breath.

Before anyone can baby me, I tell Leliana, “I only know what you do, that she’s looking for a solution to the Calling. Speaking of….”

 

* * * * *

 

I stop after filling them in on the Warden problem, and it’s decided that, hopefully, our showing in Val Royeaux may inspire at least _some_ goodwill we wouldn’t have been able to claim otherwise, because the unfortunate truth is that we don’t have a fraction of the manpower we would need to address all these problems before they reach crisis level. Which is probably best, anyway, since curtailing too many plans before they’re apparent would only drive Sethius underground.

Understandably, everyone retreats to their own minds for a long time when we’re done.

I realize I’ve been poking and kneading and pinching at the skin on one side of my face like I was playing with clay. And my feet feel… cold? Numb? Tingly?

Bull is openly staring at me.

“Wat,” I say flatly.

“Has your hair gotten more red?”

“You mean has my hair gotten _any_ red?” I have to fight to keep the words crisp, and I’m not as successful as I’d like. His drink has started kicking in with a _vengence._

“Water,” I demand of no one in particular. Cole pops up at my side with a waterskin in each hand.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he says. “He only wanted to help.”

“Honey I love you,” I slur, the problem exponentially worse than it had been just a moment ago, “and I am already too trun-- too _drunk,_ to try and make sense of any of that. You need to listen to papa Varric and work on your goddamned nouns.” I pause and scowl. “But not Bianca. Don’t listen to her. Probably ever, because she's terrible. Sorry, Varric." The others exchange bewildered looks. "Also, if you want more people to like you, stop looking like Cole when he was dying. Be happy Cole. Rosy cheeks, pre torture and malnourishment and shattered heart.” I pause, then of the people responsible for what he went through, say a vehement, “Fuckers.”

My countenance folds over on itself. “...I know what it feels like when that happens. When you break. And when it happens again. And again, and again, and no matter how strong you are, it can happen one too many times. And then five too many times. And ten. And thirty. ...But I wasn’t in a cell.” I pause. My voice drops to nearly a whisper and the skin around my eyes goes tight, lines form between my eyebrows. “I didn’t get to die.”

I pop a stopper and guzzle one of the waterskins.

Solas is watching me, and strangely so, and I shoot a glare at him.

“You have a particular fondness for redheads, Iron Bull, do you not?” He asks.

“Best thing about the South,” he agrees.

Solas makes a noise of acknowledgement. There is an edge to it, placed just for me. He’s telling me something, but I have no idea what. I wouldn’t even if I were sober.

I look over at Bull, eyes narrowed. “Don’t think I don’t see you Ben-Hassrath-watching me out of the corners of your eyes just because I’m getting drunk.”

“Trouble,” Varric laughs, “there’s no ‘getting.’ You’re already there. You bought land and started a farm.”

“Did we save the world?” I ask him excitedly. “Also, were there griffons?”

“Sorry to tell you,” Blackwall says, “but griffons went extinct a long time ago.”

“Shows what you know,” I scoff at him. “What’s her face saved a bunch of eggs because they were stupid and got them all killed. The Wardens, I mean. Were stupid. Oh, shut up, T--” I cut myself off and pretend like I did so because I suddenly needed to clear my throat. I’d almost said his real name. I cover with, “Tiny little smallman. Person. Yes, I know, the Wardens are brave and selfless and magnificent and they poop glitter and I’m actually not being sarcastic, except about the glitter part because obviously, but also they were people and people are famous for two things, one of which is being _stupid.”_ I suck in a breath, having run myself entirely out of air. “Also you would look very good with a mohawk. I’ve seen it. Like actually, not with my fancy… well, no, yeah, I guess it was with my fancy mind eye or whatever. Anyway. You do you. I like your hair now, too, see, so... yeah. Like you have a good jaw, but also your beard is fantastic. See? It’s all very win-win with your hair situation.”

Hair reminds me of chest hair, which reminds me of bodies, and I just barely stop myself from saying I’ve seen them all naked.

I continue my diatribe at the Hero. “Also please don’t be an asshole to Dorian. I _love_ Dorian, and honestly of all the people in the whole stupid world that I’m not even supposed to be in who shouldn’t judge someone because of their origins… I mean… come on. Mr. Warden. Mr. Everyone-Knows-That-Wardens-Pretty-Much-Always-Have-Sketchy-Pasts Warden.”

"Who's Dorian?" He whispers to Cullen.

"I have absolutely no idea," he replies in an undertone.

“You know,” Varric says, “I knew I'd like you drunk. Do the Seeker next.”

“I do not do requests. Also I’m sorry because you guys, I am _so stuffy_ all the time, and it's just the worst. Also. Again. Cullen? You are _ridiculously_ pretty. But in a man way. And also on the inside, because if you weren’t super pretty on the inside, then your outside would also be… not as pretty. Which is why all those noblewomen will be terrible, and you listen, all you have to do ever is ask me and I will rescue you from them, because you are wonderful and I love you.”

He stills, then goes red from collar to hairline.

“Nooooo not like that. I mean maybe? Whatever, my point is, I love all you dummies. You’re the best dummies. In the whole world...s. Of all of the… forever.”

Solas exchanges a glance with Elden. “Prophet, perhaps we might have that word now?”

“Yes, Solas, we can have that word. Except never. Is when we can do that. Because you’re terrible.”

Varric rubs at his temples with one hand and shakes his head.

Solas purses his lips and switches to Elvhen. _“How fast is your metabolism?”_

“What? What the shit does that have to do with anything?”

 _”If you are too far gone to understand what I am implying, then the problem is considerably worse than I estimated.”_ He is annoyed. I don’t know why, but I like it. I like him better this way. And not even in a bitchy way.

My mind bobs like a cork in oil as I reach for what apparently obvious thing he wants me to see. The others are watching closely. Most of them. Cullen is still red as a beet and not looking at anyone, Varric is exchanging some sort of deeply amused looks with Hawke, and Cole is staring intently at a thread on Blackwall ’s sleeve. Fenris is looking the least disgusted at me as he has since we met.

I pedal back through the events of the evening. My metabolism is slow. Bull likes red hair. My stomach is acting weird. Being drunk is awesome, and sober me kind of sucks. Solas does weird things.

Solas…. Solas does….

Solas had panicked when I had so much as mentioned alcohol.

And there it is.

My eyes slip closed.

 _“Another elvhen trait?”_ I ask him.

___“__ You need it get it out of your system. Immediately."_

“You… ok, do you know what?” I harp at him. I push onto my feet, bracing a hand on Bull’s shoulder so I don’t fall over. I nearly do anyway. “Do you know what you don’t do when someone’s going to die or something? You don’t calmly ask them for a chat.” I wave the others off as their eyes start to go wide, “Shut up, I’m sure I’ll be fine. You say ‘hey, person who hates me for no good reason at all, I need to talk to you now and it’s really important so pull the fucking rafter out of your ass and let’s goooooo.’ That’s what you say. Preferably, because most of the time you sound like you have a rafter up _your_ ass. No, three. One to two would probably be normal for you. Which is fine, you know, it takes all kinds. But there’s nothing wrong with small words, Solas. And there are things called contractions. They make people like you.”

Both hands on Bull as if the earth were rumbling under my feet, I make my way to his back, wrap my arms around his neck, and say conversationally, “The Iron Bull. I need to go into the woods please, right now, because of reasons I will tell you in the woods, but we need to go now and also really fast and please and thank you.”

With a quick glance at Cassandra, he stands and heads for the treeline, me dangling limply down his back. As we get close he hoists me up, tells me not to puke on him, and starts jogging.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Then after they're gone:
> 
> “...How much of that was supposed to make sense?” Hawke asks Josephine.
> 
> Elden leans back onto her elbows. “You’ll get used to it.”
> 
> “Who says I want to?” She replies sardonically.
> 
> -
> 
> So I’m on chapter seven in the rewrite, and a lot is changing. Mostly because as I’m reading it, I’m going “How did _anyone_ keep reading this?” Because I wouldn’t have kept reading this. *starkface*
> 
> You guys are something. <3
> 
> ON A COMPLETELY UNRELATED NOTE, (haha) **Guys I need a Beta. Like desperately. Someone discerning and sharp who can view editing as a process and a dialogue, and is the sort who doesn't have a problem not holding back.**
> 
>  
> 
> **Desperately.**


	30. We Had A Good Run

“Whelp, I have no gag reflex. Congrash-- congera-- fuck that’s hard to say. My point is, yay for any dudes I decide to give blowjobs to in the future. Well and ladies. I can hold my breath for like _ever.”_

I’m on the ground, sitting between my sprawled, bent legs. I have basically shoved my whole fist into my… that dangly thing at the back of your throat. That was the last attempt, anyway, after I started getting impatient.

“Not if you’re dead,” Bull says grimly.

“Ooohh, look at you,” I scathe, “fergurger-- fig-- fig-you-ring,” I enunciate carefully, “it out with your big fancy brain.”

He growls, “You spelled it out. I’m gonna go fish up some herbs to make you throw up.”

“Noooo, you don’t need to do that,” I drawl. “Just… gimme a second.”

I pull inward. My ara’lin is swirling like some sort of oil spill, but I am magic itself. You can’t drink that away. I give a little nudge, and--

I double over, vomiting up the entire contents of my stomach.

I groan loudly and mutter an obscenity to myself as I scoot backwards away from the mess.

Bull feels better, but he’s still worried. Stupid bastard is so sweet. Haha, literally. Bastard. Because Qunari.

“I’ll go talk to your elf, see if she can make something to flush the rest--”

“No need,” I repeat. Sloppily. I’m still spitting sick out of my mouth, and my throat is burning from it.

I breathe, slow and deep, and I just… will it gone. The alcohol. A wracking shudder goes over me and I instantly break into a sweat. My teeth chatter, and I’m so clammy I’m practically soaked. But I’m sober. Just like that.

I magic away the sweat and the messes, but obviously I can’t erase anything I said in the last fifteen minutes.

“...I’m going to sleep out here tonight,” I say. “And then possibly also forever.”

My god, I told Cullen _I loved him._

I put my face in my hands, both elbows propped on the ground. Bull sits next to me, his arms resting comfortably on his knees.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he says. “Most of us thought it was pretty funny.”

“No you didn’t. Two of you thought it was pretty funny.”

“The Warden seemed pretty tickled. It was good seeing you do something so normal.”

Cullen. _Cullen._ And I had just been _holding his hand._ I groan. It’s an abjectly pathetic sound.

“Feeling better?” Bull asks.

I laugh drily. “I mean....”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” I agree. We sit in the quiet for a long time, but I shut out the sounds of the camp almost immediately. It’s mostly people wondering if I’m ok, Cullen and Solas making excuses to retire early… but god I just want to miss any commentary that might be forthcoming.

Bull holds out a waterskin. "Drink this. Whole thing. You might not feel a skull-splitting headache, but just in case."

I take it from him with my thanks and down it. When I'm done, I dab at my mouth with the back of a hand. "So,” I venture, “congratulations? Apparently there’s a way to kill me. Your superiors should be thrilled.”

“Pretty sure Leliana wouldn’t approve that one going through.”

“Pretty sure don’t act like I’m stupid and I don’t know you can get them information on the sly.” They’d obviously managed to do so when they ordered him to shack up with me.

“If I had to, sure. But I don’t see a reason they need to know about this.”

I gawp over at him.

“Who’s going to force you to drink enough booze to kill yourself? If someone could force you to do _anything,_ they wouldn’t need the booze.”

That’s a hell of a sketchy gray area for him to be walking, loyalty wise. ...Or it would be, if he weren’t already much further from the Qun than I’ve assumed. He _has_ been in the South for years, and though what might break that last thread will happen while he’s in the Inquisition, it’s hardly where the change will have started.

Bull sighs tightly. “Listen, my orders--”

“Don’t,” I interrupt. “I’m not mad. I get it. The truth is....” I shift, suddenly uncomfortable, and pull my knees up and to myself, wrapping my arms around them. “The truth is I’m no better,” I admit. “I never should have let you touch me before I told you what I’d found out.” I didn’t even have a lifelong loyalty or creed to use as an excuse.

He looks over at me. “Why?” It’s more a “What should you have told me” than it is a “Why should you have stopped me.”

I close my eyes and let my head droop forward. I explain to him that the veil is man-made, and how the first of the ancient elves came to be. I ignore the spike of near-disgust in his scent.

“I met people who knew what I was,” I say.

“...You’re one of them,” he concludes, far too easily. “Spirit-born.” His voice is grim. Already.

I laugh bitterly. “No. No, Bull, I’m the result of dozens, maybe hundreds of spirits being hacked apart, pieces of them taken and stuck back together, then crammed into a custom-made body.” I look over at him. “...There are pieces of demon in me.”

He is utterly still, and it is perhaps the most frightening, or at least worrying thing I’ve ever seen.

“That’s the first time you’ve ever called me that,” he says seriously.

My face scrunches in confusion. “What?”

“Bull. Not The Iron Bull. Just Bull.”

I turn away, angry. “Stop fucking with me. You can’t stand anything to do with the Fade, demons are literally your worst nightmare, you have almost no stomach for Cole and he's literally the embodiment of compassion. Just… if you need to stay because of your job, I get it. Just don’t lie to me.”

“...Yeah, the thing is..." he laughs a little, "I really can't believe I'm about to say this, but the thing is, I’m not so sure I care.”

My eyes snap up to his, furious.

“Look at me.”

"What?"

He leans forward. _"Look_ at me."

...Oh.  
  
I open my nose, my ears. I let myself really take him in.

He gives a satisfied nod and repeats, slowly, “I don’t care.”

He means it. I’m stunned.

“Is it weird? Obviously. But I’ve been watching you long enough now that I know you better than you know yourself. It’s kind of my thing. I’ve been ready for the secrets to drop, big ones, and I knew at least some of them would have to do with more weird magic shit, which always has to do with the Fade. You popped out of it for fuck’s sake. But however you were made, however many thousands of years ago, you’ve got a handle on yourself now. You _own_ yourself. More than anyone outside the Qun I’ve ever seen, and frankly better than some inside it. I’m not worried.”

I stare at him, absolutely gobsmacked. Then I just flop backwards onto the ground and stare up at the stars through the canopy of leaves.

Bull. Of all people.

After a while, he asks, “How many are there?”

“What, spirits?”

“Ancient elves.”

Ah. There’s that Ben-Hassrath mind at work.

“I don’t know, honestly. Not many, I don’t think. But none of them are like me. I was built to be better than them when they were at their prime. Stronger, faster, better senses. They’re more like you, or sort of… very enhanced elves. They feel pain, they have to eat and sleep more. They do all have magic, but none like I do.”

He looks over at me. “...So. What were you built for?” The question manages to _sound_ like nothing more than conversational curiosity.

I pause, then put my hands behind my head. Quietly, I answer, “To kill Gods.”

“...Fuck,” he murmurs.

It’s quiet again. But before long, he leans down next to me, resting his weight on one elbow. He stares into my eyes with the force of everything he says he knows about me and everything he sees that he shouldn’t be able to.

He looks like he wants to say something.

Instead, he just kisses me, and my eyes go wide. Eventually, he settles over me, and I exhale.

“There you go,” he murmurs.

He runs a hand up my bare side, hip to shoulder, shoulder to wrist, and I shift under him, arching up just a little. He pulls both of my hands out from behind my head and clasps my them together, pushing them above me. It isn’t until then that my eyes start to roll back into my head, my lids to flutter closed.

How can he want this? How can he be ok with any of it?

But his scent is pure and clean and.... And as I take it in, I feel something in me shift. My back arches sharply, and I go fluid and pliant as if I’ve been drinking again. I bring one knee off the ground, just an inch or two, inviting him in. I want this. Every piece of me wants this. I _need_ it. Touch, connection, grounding.

My scent changes, and he growls, an inhuman sort of hum and rumble, his grip on my wrists tightening like a vice. He doesn’t hold his strength back, not at all, and it makes something hungry tremble over me like a shiver. His massive legs shove mine apart so he can settle there, but he keeps his weight off of the one place I need it most. My hips angle toward him and I feel a strange movement inside of me. I’ve never felt anything like it, as if my organs are pebbles being shifted around. In a flash, the forearm that’s holding him up braces against my pelvis and he puts his weight into it to hold my hips down.

He shoves back, almost glaring at me. “You tell me now if you don’t want this.” I haven’t heard this voice from him before. It isn’t kind, it isn’t warm.

I don’t understand. I’m not exactly hiding my reactions. Why is he asking? But his scent is.... It isn’t like him. There’s an edge to it, like berserkers I’ve smelled in battle, like a person about to snap. It’s so consuming that I can’t say anything.

“You know what a watchword is?” He asks.

I nod.

“What’s yours?”

I grin at him, half feral, and counter, “What’s yours?”

His chest rumbles, making a sound so deep I don’t think it’s meant to be heard. It feels like a force of nature.

Bull shifts and pushes up with one thigh, rolling it against me. My head snaps back and I gasp. He lowers his head and nips at my earlobe, growling, “It’s not going to be me who needs one.”

The tiniest smile moves over my face like a cloud over the sun. “Stop,” I whisper. “It’s stop.”

For a second, I think he wants to argue. I sense it there, teetering. Instead, his hand around my wrists tighten and he rolls his _considerable_ erection against me. It elicits the most helpless sound from me that I think I’ve ever made, and I realize I feel _vulnerable._ But I’m not afraid. Not with him.

There is a painful, aching fire in my chest, shooting down my arms and up into my jaw. He releases my wrists, and his hand snakes down my arm, pressing hard into me as it slides over my breast, nails digging in, then back up to wrap around my throat. He pushes down, making it harder to breathe, but the pressure stays away from the arteries in my neck. I don’t know why this feels good, but it _does,_ and my eyes roll back again. A quiet, high little moan strikes in my throat. My fingers dig into the hard soil as if it’s loose sand.

I feel him smile, and it is not a friendly thing. He leans down, teeth bared--

I jerk upward with a gasp, inadvertently headbutting him. Someone’s footsteps are headed this way. Thom.

I swear in a whispered shout as I tell him hurriedly. He hesitates an instant, but sits up with an annoyed growl, and I turn myself so I’m laying next to him.

Just before Thom comes into view, I strongarm my breaths into reasonable order and put my hands over my face as if I’m still suffering.

“We, uh… we thought someone should check,” he says. He sounds uncomfortable. “I still can’t figure out if I volunteered or not.”

“Did the conversation involve Leliana?” I ask as if raw.

“It did, matter of fact.”

I laugh a little. “You probably didn’t volunteer. And welcome to the Inquisition, by the way. I’m sure you’re brimming with confidence.”

“...You sound better,” is all he says.

I hold a hand up and wiggle my fingers. “Fancy magic. Apparently also good for hangovers. Er, pre-hangovers.”

“You mean being three sheets to the wind?” Bull asks blandly. His voice is raw underneath, and a smell of hostile anger is giving way to overwhelming confusion in his scent.

“I will kill you.”

Thom walks forward and leans his shoulder against a tree, making of us a little group. “From what I gather, you’ve earned a night off among friends. It’s funny, though, hearing about all these amazing things you can do, then finding out you can’t hold your liquor.” He sounds amused. Reserved and still gentlemanly, but amused. “Uh, no offense, of course. Actually... if I’m being honest? It was good to know there’s something normal about you, if you know what I mean. It’s quite a legend you’ve got building around you out there in the world. It’s inspiring hope. You should be proud of that.”

That surprises me, the talk of hope, what with the theft of over half of Thedas’s working class.

“Told you,” Bull murmurs.

“Cram it. Horse’s ass.”

Thom glances between us with a little laugh. “How do you tell her favor from her ire?”

“He’s a betting man,” I answer for him. “But I like him just fine. Mostly. I haven’t, er, been at my best the last few days. I apologize.”

“You like me," Bull says, "but do you _love_ me? Maybe?”

I groan and hide my face in my arms. “That’s it, I’m letting the world end. Everybody pack up and go home, we had a good run. Short, but good.”

Bull sobers. “You know, the Kid said something like that.”

I look up at him in shock.

“No, not that. He said we were your family. He meant it in a big way.”

“Damnit, Cole,” I breathe. I let my arms fall away and flop to the ground in what must be an impressive display of maturity.

Bull shakes his head, “What I mean is, Cullen already knew. We all did.”

“That makes me feel so much better,” I grouse, mostly to myself.

“I haven’t been with them long,” Thom rumbles, “but it’s obvious you mean a good deal to every one of them. They’re good people. It speaks well of you. Not too sure about that Cleric, Andraste forgive me, but I’m told he’s more along for the trip than anything.”

I scrub my hands over my face, draw out the first letter of an exceptional curse, and push myself to my feet like I’m made of heavy, wet fabric. I head in the direction of camp.

“Sleep tonight,” Bull says from behind me. It’s not quite the voice he was using before, but it’s definitely not his normal voice, either. I stop long enough to look over my shoulder at him. “Let other people take the watches.”

He wants to finish what we started.

I want to stare at him while I consider, but since we have company, I let my eyes fall.

“I’ll think about it,” I say abruptly.

I turn around and tromp off through the underbrush, barking, “But while we’re on the subject, air out your goddamned tent before you sleep tonight. I could smell it from a mile down the road. I’m going for a walk. Completely unrelated to the fact that I may or may not never want to look anyone back there in the eye ever again. Might be a while.”

I haven’t decided to join him. But if I do, whoever’s on watch would definitely notice a tent flap opening of its own accord.

“...You know,” Thom muses when he thinks I’m out of earshot, “I think you’re right. She’s got some red in her hair.”

Bull’s only reply is a smooth grunt.

 

* * * * *

 

Moving soundlessly is an unthinking habit, so much so that when I try to stop doing it to give myself the satisfaction of tromping noisily through the woods, all I really accomplish is an added layer of frustration because I have to concentrate to do it, which rather kills the therapy of the thing.

I sit down gracelessly by the fire.

“Hi,” I say. I sound like a brooding teenager. Cullen and Solas are still the only ones who have retired, though neither are asleep. Cullen's trying, at least. Solas is fussing over something while he lays on his back.

“You recovered fast,” Varric says.

“Don’t sound so disappointed.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Which is true. Because he doesn’t sound disappointed, he sounds like he’s still watching the best show he’s seen in years.

"I'm not sure I trust someone who can't hold their liquor," Fenris remarks.

"Because you trusted so much else about me before," I say, dry.

"Oh, don't listen to Broody, Trouble, he's just jealous. He's been through some pretty epic hangovers."

"Thank you, Varric," he says flatly.

"That's what I'm here for," he replies pleasantly. "Helping people make friends."

“I assume this means we should find an excuse to avoid having you served alcohol in the future,” Leliana says.

“Looks that way,” I reply glumly. “Sorry for… you know.”

Amusement enters your voice. “Oh, I do not think you owe an apology. But poor Cullen may have trouble maintaining eye contact with you for a few days.”  
  
Bull and Thom have made their way back to the fire. Bull sits next to me (which Varric takes an interest in), and Thom excuses himself for the night.

"I haven't seen him blush that scarlet in... well, ever," Hawke remarks of Cullen. "Which is impressive. Man blushed more than a maiden the whole time I knew him. Maker he was fun to bait."

"I thought it was cute," Fenris remarks.

"Once you stopped wanting to punch him in the throat for looking interested, you mean?" Varric asks.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh, I don't know," Hawke says with false lightness, "it didn't last long. Just until he figured out I was a mage. Always fun when that happened." She turns to me and says excitedly, "But let's get back to your thing!  _Cullen,_ huh? How's that working for you?" There is a distinct layer of sharp disapproval buried well in her tone.

“Uh," I say. 

I turn to Leliana. "The Iron Bull said Cole mentioned something about this. The whole... the thing where I maybe consider all of you, uh… you know. In a... specific way.”

"Keep up that kind of eloquence and I'll _insist_  we start a writing group," Varric goads. 

I glower at him.

“Was that how you meant it?” Cassandra asks. Her tone is downright serious. “Familial?”

“I mean… I care about all of you.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

I scrub my hands over my face. “Yeah, well… I’m having a night, so I don’t really know how to give you one. I know how it seems. None of you know me, but I know everything about you. I know you as if we’ve been friends, and enemies, and… to be completely frank, lovers."

I ignore a disgusted noise Fenris makes, and Zevran's appreciative remark of, "Now  _that_ is an intriguing skill set."

I go on, "I have loved most of you, and I have _been_ in love with most of you, with everything I am. I’ve been men and women and almost every race and rank you could think of, from dwarven casteless and nobility, to an elf in an alienage, or a servant or Second, to a mage raised in a Circle, to a human peasant and King or Queen. I've even been a Qunari living outside of the Qun." Bull stiffens imperceptibly. "Vashoth," I say. Not Tal-vashoth. Not violent. "But none of you have those memories. Everything is upside down and backwards and thoroughly, completely buggered.”

Varric mutters something uncomfortable to himself about oversharing.

After a moment of quiet, Elden snorts, and we all look at her.

"Oh, what? Come on. 'I'm not a god, I've just lived countless lifetimes as every race, I'm not from your world, I have impossible magic, I know the world's secrets, and the future, and all of you better than you know yourselves.' I mean, really, hahren?"

"Don't assume godhood because something doesn't make sense," I say seriously. "There's always an explanation. And I don't know everything. I don't know _anything_ about you, for instance, except what you've told me."

"What's your secret?" Varric asks her. The humor in his voice is weighed down.

"A steady diet of salt and generally being fed up over how stupid everyone else is," she deadpans.

"I'll make a note."

"Elden?" I say. "Never call me hahren again."

"Why?"

"It's gross."

"...Gross. Our word for 'wise and respected elder and teacher' is 'gross.'"

"Now you're just calling me old," I sniff, arch.

She rolls her eyes. "Yeah I'm not promising that."

"Insubordinate."

She snorts.

A thought occurs to me. I lean in to Varric and whisper, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but have you been struck by the urge to kiss me or something since I got back?”

He rears away. “What? No,” he exclaims, laughing, both incredulous and a little akilter.

“Well thank god for that.”

Fen’Harel, and now Bull.... Fen and I haven’t talked about what elvhen are like when they’re in heat. Or more to the point, what _I’m_ like. Then again, even if I was giving something off, it isn’t like it should translate to the Fade.

I remember the way I had felt like I was moving around inside when I was with Bull. And what was with the comments on my hair color?

...Solas had said something about Bull being partial to redheads. Pointedly. Just like he’d pointedly reminded me how slow my metabolism was.

Bull, who’s probably too big for someone like me. And that weird shifty feeling, it had been in my lower half. And my scent had changed and sunk into him like hooks.

I go still, and then let out a quiet but impressive string of curse words. Suddenly I feel wrapped in unreality, hit by a wave of what I can only describe as surrealism, as suddenly being out of place in space and time. It swallows me, and for a moment I feel untethered.

“Hey, Trouble, you ok?” Varric asks. He sounds worried, almost urgently so. And garbled, like he’s talking through a wall of thick glass.

I snap back into place and look at him. “Uh, what?"

“You are clammy, and you have gone pale,” Leliana says, concerned.

“And your hand is on your stomach again,” Elden says, grim.

I look down and realize she’s right.

Bull's eyes are cast away like he's putting something together.

“No, I.... Look, I’ll give you, that’s getting really weird, but it isn’t what was bothering me. I think I just pieced something together, and it’s kind of disturbing.”

“What is it?” Cassandra asks.

“Sex.” Since the first, sex has been a fantastic weapon. What faster way to get into a guarded house? Infinitely more conspicuous than, say, getting myself admitted as a servant, yes, but merely one more tool in an arsenal. I already knew I could change my shape, and this, with Bull, would hardly be the first time I’d used my power without meaning to.

“Uhhhh,” is all Varric manages.

I wave him off impatiently. “No, not like that.” I sigh, frustrated, and shake my head. “I don't want to talk about it right now, it gets too much into what I learned, and I don’t want to tell the story twice. Believe it or not, it’s not as important as being ready for the city.”

“You really gotta quit that,” Bull says.

“What?” I ask, shocked.

“Carrying all this shit by yourself. You’re going to snap.” He leans in and murmurs. "And if you don't want to talk about it, I've got other ways I can help. _Exhaustively."_

I swallow thickly.

“I mean,” Varric says, “He’s not wrong.”

“Oh go… kiss a druffalo,” I say. “I’m going for a run. Don’t wait up.”

I can practically hear all the comments Bull is holding back about pent up energy. And possibly Zevran.

Just a little longer. Just a few days until we get to Val Royeaux and the meet plays out, and I can exchange the burden of carrying too much weight in secrets for the uncertainty of jumping without knowing whether a safe landing awaits.

 

* * * * *

 

When I return, it’s to the surprise of seeing Roderick and Kerry are sitting at the fire. Kerry is clearly on watch, and the Cleric is reading something. Dawn will come soon.

I told myself it was a kindness to both Fen’harel and myself to stay out of the Fade tonight.

“I’ll take over,” I murmur to the Kerry when I reach them. He glances at Roderick, obviously not happy with the idea, but I just nod to let him know it’s ok and take a seat. Kerry makes his way back to the tent they’re sharing.

“I have nothing to say to you,” Roderick says, stiff and haughty and distant. But it’s much more gentle than it would be at any other time of day, too. Pre-morning does the most incredible job of softening people up and opening them, gentling their harshest edges.

“Actually,” I say as I nudge the fire with a stick. Sparks fly up with the smoke like a swarm of disturbed insects. “I’ve been hoping to talk to you, so that works out well. I’m having difficulty understanding something about you.”

He makes a derisive noise and pretends to go back to his book.

“You are completely, incredibly dedicated,” I say. “And that’s what has me stuck. What I don’t understand… Roderick, they have a writ. An order under seal, drafted and completed and put into Cassandra and Leliana’s hands long before the Divine was killed. She herself had been working for nearly a year to get the Inquisition off the ground, and much longer than that, under the fear that things were becoming so dire there would be no other choice than to declare one, doing everything she could to prevent it. You know all of that.

“You object to me personally, which I understand. That one’s not so hard. Your caution is wise.” It has passed the point of wise, yes, but given that he loathes everything I stand for on principal, I’m choosing my words very carefully. “But you oppose the _Inquisition,_ and would do so even if I didn’t exist.

“You may not have been the Left or Right hand, but I believe you knew Justinia.” As much as he could, which is not a distinction I want to clarify just now. “And Justinia knew what she was doing. This was her last will and testament, entrusted to the two people closest to her. Feel how you will about it, they stood by her side, carried out her orders, served as faithfully as ever anyone could. They loved her, and love her still, with pure and dedicated hearts. They knew the whispers of her mind. Not just her orders, not just the things she showed to the public or even the Mothers who served her. She spoke her mind to them. Her heart. Her hopes and worries. And she trusted them with this. That writ is her creation, her hope for a better future. Her acknowledgement that what was happening was too big for the Chantry to solve alone. I know you loved her, so why are you trying to tear it apart?” I ask, carefully gentle.

“Divine Justinia was murdered,” he says. His temper is up, yes, but this is still the most reasonable I’ve heard him, except when he was on his deathbed. “Whatever plans she laid, whatever intentions she had, they led to her brutal execution. They were warped and twisted and it was made clear that there was no wish to cooperate. It does not matter whether it was the mages or the Templars or whatever faceless lie you have sold to every poor fool who discards faith in favor of greed and pandering.

“Most Holy did everything in her power, and they butchered her and desecrated this world’s most holy place in one blow. You press forward under the auspices of collecting allies and restoring order, yet you claim to be not of this world. How would you even know what order should look like? You are a mage,” his voice is almost white-hot with disgust and disdain on the last word. “You are everything that has gone wrong,” he finishes, cold and certain.

I sit with my arms on my knees and turn my face to the soft, dusty ground under my feet.

“What is it you would do? Were the resources and connections yours, as you say they should be, what would you do?”

He thinks I’m having him on now, so it takes him a second. To my surprise, he glances at the tent Kerry is in.

“Perhaps you might deign to answer a question of your own,” he says. “Why did you give me the sword that day in Haven?”

I laugh quietly to myself. “I’m not sure I know. Things from that far back.... I suppose that wasn’t even that long ago was it? Regardless, it’s more blurred than I’d like. I remember knowing how angry you were, and what you wanted. And if I’m being honest? We had such important things to be getting on with, Roderick. People were dying and panicking and the scavengers among us sought to take advantage more every hour. I couldn’t exactly have a conversation with you, and it would have made no difference if I’d had the ability.”

“So you cling to your lies still, claiming you knew not a word of our language. I truly wish I could say I was surprised.”

“Technically, I cling to the truth,” I say, a little wry. “I find that a much more sound practice. But you’ve seen people call fire from thin air. You live in a world where a tablespoon of liquid can heal a wound and people change into animals. Is a language spell so far fetched?”

I cant my head so it angles down and I can look up at him, just a little. “You must have your ear to some of the rumors. How many of the credible ones have me making any sort of grab for power or claiming myself to be anything other than some… I don’t know, new breed of weirdo? As you said, I claim I’m not from this world. I submitted myself to you that first day when you and I both know by now that there’s no prison or guard in the world that could hold me if I didn’t want to be held. It’s all but impossible for my life to be taken unless I freely give it, at least as far as I know. I haven’t run. I haven’t thrown resources at finding my way back. Now, given all that, if I’m not in this for power, why do you suppose I’m still here?”

“You _are_ in this for power. The fact that you have yet to make your grab for it does not change that!”

I want to sigh. I want to tell him that I’m not trying to sell him on something. Which would be a lie, but that’s hardly the point. None of that is how you win over someone who hates you, anyway. You give a thing life by deigning to deny it, in fact.

There’s a rustle of fabric behind us. Cullen is awake and listening. I hadn’t noticed. He’s also incredibly angry.

I hold up my right hand. My skin gleams silvery and shifts colors where the Anchor is, but I doubt Roderick can see it. It’s young, yet.

“I am here,” I say, “because this is the sole hope your world has. I have seen what happens if the Breach is not sealed. If Rifts go unclosed and continue to spread. It is a world you would not wish even upon me.”

His face is going splotchy.

“Justinia knew what might go wrong,” I said. “Granted, I doubt she considered what actually ended up happening, but you know as well as I do that she was one of the most clever and savvy political minds in the world. She knew the risks. She knew the stakes. And that’s why she chose this course of action, of all the options in the world. That’s why her Hands are fighting tirelessly to carry out her wishes. Because they _love_ her. Because they see a world in which they mean nothing, and know they have to try anyway. That is their faith, and in them, it is stronger than in anyone I will likely ever meet. I am surrounded by figures of legend who put my every thought and action and worry to shame. These people are pillars of the very earth.”

“You are a fool.”

“And you can’t hurt me with something I already know. You’re flawed, too, Roderick, and I know you know that. You’re proud, and afraid, but you love the Maker, and you love Andraste. You seek to protect the faithful and to save the world from itself. Sometimes I think it’s a great pity we disagree on how to do that.” Which is also a lie, at least mostly. We aren’t the most pure parts of ourselves. We’re prejudices and bushy eyebrows and stodgy, judgmental tendencies.

“It’s because of those things that I didn’t like not understanding you. And now I do. It’s out of love that you argue and fight, like a child grown old enough to understand that the parent may not know what’s best.

“I know we’re not going to get along. You despise me too much for that. Which is alright; you aren’t the first, and you certainly won’t be the last. But because of _who_ you are, you need to know something.” I lean in and lower my voice considerably. “When the Breach is closed, if something goes wrong, every life in Haven will rest in your hands. Keep yourself safe that day, because if you are not there, every man, woman, and child, will either be killed, or irreversibly corrupted. Whatever you believe of them, Roderick, they are the faithful. And whatever you believe of our cause, it is the _only_ thing that keeps this Magister of old from flattening all the world, from setting it blaze and covering it in a darkness you cannot yet fathom - and may you never be able to. In this, if that day comes to pass, you will be the only hope the world has.”

I hold his gaze to let him know how serious I am, then get up and walk off. When I near the trees and am enrobed by shadows too dark for his eyes to pierce, I cast myself out of sight and double back. I ghost through the canvas of Bull’s tent and settle against him, my head and arm on his massive chest.

He seems to know I’m not there for fun, and gives gives a weighted sigh as he shifts.

“You want to tell me what’s up?” He murmurs, his nose going to my hair.

“Yeah.”

“But you’re not going to.”

“Not right now. Right now I just need...”

This. I just need this.

He sighs again, but nestles me in to him, and I fall into a deep meditation something like sleep to the steady cadence of his breath, to the beat of his heart, and to the rise and fall of his stomach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 10/4(ha)/18: added bit about Bull making her drink water. Because wracking hangover, probably.  
> 10/6/18: Tweaks, a few small things added or taken away here and there. Hawke, Fenris, and Zevran added to the scene where Nua comes back from the woods.


End file.
